Perfect Dark: Onryou
by Xantar
Summary: Years after the fall of DataDyne, Joanna has gone missing. Carrington's newest top agent uncovers some clues to her disappearance and unearths a dark, and twisted conspiracy that will shake everyone to their core.
1. Prologue: The One They Called Perfect

_Author's Note: So someone finally convinced me to post this on FFN. I originally wrote this story over ten years ago, and boy does it show. I would revise it, but I already did that once about five years ago. I would say that revision raised the quality level from embarrassing to slightly tolerable if you've got nothing better to do. Which you don't because let's face it, you're reading this on FFN._

_This fic was written just after the first Perfect Dark had come out. I have no idea whether it fits in with Perfect Dark: Zero's storyline since I never played it. I suppose at this point the fic is practically alternate universe._

_Rest assured that the story is finished and won't leave you hanging. I will post a new chapter about once a week, and there are a total of 15 in all plus Prologue and Epilogue. Also, this is the only Author's Note you will see. The rest of the chapters will be posted without comment._

_If you really want to get my attention for some reason, head over to purevideogames dot net slash blog where you can read the official copies of this fic and others by browsing the Xanfics section. Leave a comment somewhere and I am sure to respond quickly._

**Prologue: The One They Called Perfect**

It was such an ordinary robbery. It was almost routine, in fact. Location: A small 7-eleven in downtown Chicago. Criminal: A tall man wearing a leather jacket, blue jeans and a ski mask over his head who wielded a nondescript handgun. Victim: An old cashier who had been manning this particular cash register for more decades than he cared to remember.

Ben Stoker had seen it all before. The man with the ski mask charged in through the door and immediately pointed his gun at the cashier. In a voice harsh, loud voice, he demanded all the money in the register. They always shouted for some reason. They always seemed to want to frighten their victims with that shouting, as if pointing a gun directly at someone's face wasn't frightening enough. And in the end it really didn't matter. A cashier confronted with a gun knows what to do. No amount of intimidation can increase the amount of money in the drawer. And shouting only revealed your voice—to be recognized later.

It was definitely unprofessional, and Stoker smiled inwardly. This would be just like the last time. Standing in an aisle where he could not be seen, he quietly drew his Magnum and took aim. He always used a Magnum. There were fancier weapons, but Stoker had yet to see a gun that could punch through obstacles like his old six-shooter.

He was aiming at the robber's gun. There was absolutely no possibility that he could miss. Several years of training as an agent of the Carrington Institute guaranteed that. Slowly, deliberately, he squeezed the trigger.

He had to admit that he didn't hit his target. This robber was a nervous one. At the very last instant, his hand had moved a bit to the side. That meant that Stoker's bullet hit his hand instead of the gun. Those kinds of things happened, and it was all the same in the end anyway. Besides, Stoker had the satisfaction of hearing a cry of pain rip out of his victim's throat. "All right, you're under arrest." Stoker refused to employ one of the several one-liners that popped into his head. His victim might not be professional, but he would be damned if he would also stoop down to that level.

He would never know exactly what happened next. The robber in the leather jacket quickly dove to his right. Stoker had been anticipating that something like that might happen, but he was still not fast enough. The bullet he fired missed. Then the robber was gone. Stoker's heart began to clench. He had never seen anyone move that fast before. It was simply impossible. His reflexes were first-rate: only Jonathan had ever earned a better score in that category. Fearing that the situation might be growing steadily out of control, he scanned all the areas in front of him for a sign of that leather jacket or black ski mask.

Stoker can be forgiven for not looking behind himself. It had never occurred to him that someone could move so fast as to be behind him already. It was a mistake all the same: this man had gotten behind him. The only warning he had was the sudden premonition people sometimes get that there is someone behind them. He only had enough time to whirl about and catch a glimpse of the black mask before he felt his gun seized. Then a sharp pain lanced up his arm accompanied by a snap, and he knew that his arm was broken. He only had enough time to realize this before his feet were swept out from under him and he was on his back. For the first time, he felt the cold embrace of fear and the certain knowledge that this was the end. He looked up, past his own gun pointed at him and into the blue eyes of the man holding it. "Who the hell are you?" he whispered. He never found out.

~-0-~

It had been a bad day for Daniel Carrington. The local news reported that crime had jumped up another percentage point this month. In particular, certain criminals were striking often, and nothing the police did ever seemed to stop them. They just seemed superhuman somehow.

And to top it all off, one of his most promising agents had been killed.

He needed a break to get away from it all. Daniel Carrington got up from his computer terminal for a walk. He always paced randomly through the halls of his building, but lately, he had been visiting one particular place more often than others. Who could blame him for remembering better times? In particular, the world had seemed so much safer nine years ago. Carrington's footsteps led him into the gallery where the photographs of dead agents were hung on the wall. Stoker's picture would be up there pretty soon.

Carrington walked along slowly, looking into the faces of all the agents who had given up their lives for his cause. They were like his children, really. None of these agents had been older than thirty-five at death.

And there she was. She had been the one who set examples for everyone else to follow. At a time of crisis, she had saved the world. She had carried the hopes of the Carrington Institute on her shoulders, and she had carried it well. She was the one they had called Perfect.

Daniel Carrington stared for a long moment at her picture and sighed. "I wish you were still with us, Joanna."


	2. Chapter 1: Yuurei

**Chapter 1: Yuurei**

For most secret agents, a large, brightly lit room patrolled by a guard with no objects to hide behind is to be avoided like the plague. To Hikaru Shinsuke, it was a golden opportunity. Who would expect her to attempt to run through this room? To be fair, most people trying to pass unnoticed through this area would fail. Hikaru was not most people.

She spent the next few seconds peering into the room through the doorway that she would eventually be using. Her destination was another door almost directly across the room from her position. The distance was about 30 meters, and the guard was patrolling a path perpendicular to the one she would take. He took about eight seconds to walk from the middle of the room to the end of his path. That was plenty of time. Hikaru waited, gathered herself, and then launched herself into a full sprint when the time was right. Her legs propelled her on long, even strides, touching the ground just enough to push her forward. Her feet didn't make a sound as she ran behind the guard close enough to reach out and touch him. He never heard her breath whispering through her mouth, didn't notice the slightest stir of air created by her body, never knew that she had been there. By the time he reached the end of his path and turned around, Hikaru was already gone.

She quickly turned out of sight and stopped to take a deep, slow breath as she scanned the territory ahead. Ahead of her was a door opening into a stairwell that she wanted to get to. Doors in high security buildings like the one she was in always had a system to detect when they were opened. There was a security card slot manufactured by Aidan Security Systems. She had studied this particular model extensively and immediately knew what to do. Quickly unscrewing the plate from the wall, she dug in with her hands and found the two wires she was looking for. In order to protect against the very thing she was attempting, all the wires in the wall were black instead of conveniently color-coded, but it didn't matter to Hikaru. She was working entirely on feel. Stripping the wires with a knife she had brought along, she crossed the wires and crimped them together. The resulting short circuit disabled the door's locking mechanism, but the building's security monitors would not detect anything amiss. Hikaru pushed the door open and slipped into the stairwell, looking to see what she had to deal with next.

The next seemingly insurmountable obstacle was a security camera pointed at the base of the stairs. Undoubtedly, the architect had designed the stairwell to be a small area that a single camera could easily monitor. It was a good idea, but it had one weakness that Hikaru intended to exploit. The camera was monitoring the base of the stairs. It wasn't looking at the ceiling. Hikaru had some pads that were to be worn on the hands and knees. The surfaces of those pads were coated with a substance that became sticky when an electric current was run through it—sticky enough to support the weight of a human clinging to a wall. Slipping them on, she crawled up the wall and then began climbing under the stairs. She quickly reached the second floor, and just for good measure, she stayed on the ceiling until she was out of the stairwell.

Now, all she had to do was cross a pressure sensitive floor to pick up a disk sitting on a desk. She suspected that she was light enough on her feet to cross some pressure sensitive floors, but she wasn't willing to test the theory. Besides, she would have to turn around to get back out, and sudden changes in direction like that would make her steps land heavily no matter how skilled she was. She didn't have to touch that floor in the first place, anyway. Arming a laser sight attached to her left wrist, she took aim at a spot on the ceiling above the desk and then pushed a button placed on her palm. A cable immediately shot out towards the spot her laser had indicated. It was tipped with the same kind of substance that coated the pads she used for wall climbing and stuck firmly to the ceiling. She pushed another button and the cable rapidly reeled in, pulling her up and over the floor until she was hanging over the desk. It was a simple matter from there to take the disk and leave the room.

Hikaru could theoretically have gotten out of the building the same way she got in, but she had set a time limit for herself. There was a window in the hallway outside the room containing the file she had just stolen. Jumping out would normally be suicide, and Hikaru wasn't crazy enough to try it. Instead, she pulled out her climbing gear and crawled down the outside wall of the building. Upon reaching the ground, she glanced at her watch, smiled briefly and then ran off.

~-0-~

"There's too much noise on these instruments," Carrington noted.

"Can't be helped," the technician beside him shrugged. "The world doesn't stand still, so the sensors are always going to be picking up something."

"CI Headquarters manages better."

"That's because our security system has the benefit of alien technology," the technician pointed out. "It's really sort of overkill. The systems in this building are the best commercially available."

Carrington shook his head. "You don't know her. I'm convinced that she could break into CI if she needed to."

Just then, the door behind them opened and a figure, covered from head to toe in black and vaguely recognizable as female, entered the room. It immediately removed its hood, revealing Hikaru's smiling face underneath. She presented her other hand with the disk she had just stolen nestled in its palm to Carrington. "Here you are, Dad."

Carrington gravely took the disk and inserted it into a slot on the console before him. He glanced once at the numbers displayed on a screen and then smiled quietly at the technician. "I rest my case."

"Now wait a second." The technician was a jaded man, but that wasn't evident on his face at the moment. "The instruments say the disk is still there."

"Aha," Hikaru remarked. "So you did add in a few extra measures that you didn't tell me about. It's a good thing I brought along a spare disk as a replacement to put on that desk. If you look back, you'll probably see the point where I made the switch."

Carrington walked to look over the technician's shoulder at the monitor. As the computer scanned backward in time, Carrington pointed at a miniscule bump on one of the many lines. "That's it, I think."

"Probably," agreed the technician. "Very deft. The system didn't notice it, and an amateur monitoring this thing wouldn't have found it. It just barely stands out in the background noise."

Hikaru walked over and looked at the monitor over the technician's other shoulder. "So what's my time?

"Oh, not bad," Carrington said with a grin. "You just broke Perfect Dark's record by about a minute, that's all."

"I don't understand," the technician said. "Even if you had sprinted through the entire course, you would have needed at least four minutes to get to the end.

"Not if I cut through Conference Room J," Hikaru pointed out.

"But that room's patrolled by a guard."

"My daughter has certain skills in the art of stealth," Carrington said with a smile.

"I didn't do that part very well." Hikaru dropped her backpack to the floor and began peeling off her ninja suit. "I let the guard make more rounds than I should have. I could have cut my time by at least another ten seconds if I had just started running earlier."

"You're getting too hard on yourself again," Carrington said. "Nobody else has ever done what you did tonight. As far as I'm concerned, you've passed your qualifying tests with flying colors. It's time for you to have a call sign."

"I have the perfect one in mind," Hikaru said, and her face clearly indicated that she did indeed have the perfect one in mind. "Yuurei."

Carrington smiled. The Japanese word for "ghost" seemed appropriate for Hikaru given her abilities.

"Yuurei it is," the technician said. He turned to his computer to make a note in the records and then paused with a frown. Hikaru helpfully spelled the word out for him to type in.

Carrington extended his hand. "Agent Yuurei, allow me to congratulate you on your A++ rating."

"Oh, you don't need to be that way, Dad," Hikaru said as she smiled and shook his hand. "I can still be your little Ruku. Have you found out anything about Stoker?" Suddenly, she wasn't smiling any more.

Carrington sighed. "Not much more than you already know. His arm was broken at the elbow, that much is certain. And it appears that he initiated the confrontation by firing a bullet into that robber's hand. He was killed by one of his own bullets entering above his right eye."

"Was the robber right-handed?"

Carrington started and suddenly became thoughtful. "From the videotapes, it would appear that he was." Hikaru, Carrington and the technician stared at each other for a long moment. They were all thinking the same thing. The robber's hand had been destroyed by a bullet, but he had used that same hand to kill Stoker.

It was Hikaru who broke the silence. "We'll figure it out eventually. I'm not up to puzzling it out right now anyway. I need a shower and then a nap for a few hours. Then maybe I can help you think about it." She gave Carrington a fond peck on the cheek, and then walked out the door.

~-0-~

Hikaru had no idea how quickly she would find out just what kind of criminal this robber was. He struck again, and this time it was Hikaru's misfortune to be in the same store with him. He seemed to be getting bolder. Not content with robbing convenience stores, he now struck a supermarket. Hikaru was in an aisle deciding on a brand of cereal when she first heard the shouting. Poking her head out of the aisle, she saw the man she recognized in the video. He was still tall, still wore a leather jacket, and still wore jeans. And he was holding a gun. He was holding it in his right hand.

Hikaru quickly ducked back. "Great," she muttered under her breath. Of all the criminals she could have run into, she had to get this one only a day after receiving her call sign. She quickly tapped a button on the pager in her belt, activating a communicator in her ear. "Agent Yuurei," she whispered.

"Central here," came the dispatcher's voice. "We read loud and clear."

"I have a bogey robbing a store. Tall, male and armed. Shots have not been fired and I am undiscovered."

"Roger that, Yuurei. You are instructed not to engage. Repeat. Do not engage."

Hikaru was about to agree when she heard gunshots. Glancing back toward the checkout counters, she saw three shoppers lying on the ground bleeding. They did not appear to be dead, but it was only a matter of time before someone was. She swore feelingly and tapped her communicator again. "Central, subject has begun firing. I must engage. Repeat. I must engage." She didn't hear the reply. She had already shut off her communicator. They would probably take a few minutes to decide whether it was worth the risk. By that time, it might be too late. An agent was expected to make his or her own decisions, and Hikaru had done just that. Grimly drawing the Falcon 3 from her belt, Agent Yuurei stepped out of the aisle and took aim.


	3. Chapter 2: A Purpose

**Chapter 2: A Purpose**

It would be redundant to say that there was a lot riding on Hikaru's shoulders. Her target had clearly demonstrated that he was willing to use brutal force in order to get more money from his victims. She briefly wondered if he expected more money to magically materialize in a person's wallet just because of a few gunshots. At any rate, he was dangerous, and by any standard, Hikaru would have been fully justified in using lethal force. Most people do not wish to use such force unless absolutely necessary, however, and Hikaru was no different in that respect. Law enforcement officers who are good enough will always try to subdue their foe alive, and Hikaru was good enough. She knew it, too.

And so she carefully tracked her target's weapon as it waved about at people. She had turned on her Falcon 3′s laser-sight which painted her target with a small dot visible only to special glasses. Like most younger agents conscious of their appearance, Hikaru was wearing contact lenses instead, but the effect was the same. The robber could not see what appeared to Hikaru as a small red dot located on the back of his hand. She knew that her bullet would land exactly where the laser pointed. The Falcon 3 incorporated the latest in rail-gun technology learned from the Maians. It was silent and had no recoil. As Hikaru felt her heart rate slow and her hands steady, she saw her target wave his gun in the air. At that instant, his gun was not pointed at anyone. It was the chance she had been waiting for.

The first shot glanced off of his gun and didn't quite succeed in knocking it out of his hand. It did surprise him enough to pause for a second, and that was all the time Hikaru needed to fire two more shots from her recoilless gun. One shot knocked the gun out of his hand. The other shot hit him in the knee. Hikaru had reason to be satisfied with herself.

The good feelings did not last long. To her shocked dismay, the robber stood up and began running on his damaged knee. Hikaru had seen a security videotape of him in action. She knew that he was fast. Unlike Ben Stoker, she was prepared for this. Stoker's mistake had been to stand still while searching around him. Hikaru knew that she would never find her target that way. Instead, she turned and ran back into the frozen food aisle. The soles of her shoes were a little too hard for her steps to be absolutely noiseless the way she liked, but in the confusion, they were quiet enough. After she had dashed about for a while, she was certain that her quarry had no idea where she was. But she knew where he was. Standing in an aisle, she peered over a bag of cookies and saw the telltale leather jacket in the aisle beyond it. She fired two more shots. They both hit him in the arm. She had known that they would. He ran off, but she quickly followed him. Before he could get to the end of the aisle, she had fired another shot pointing slightly downward. She guessed that the bullet had hit him somewhere in the leg. It had certainly made contact because he cried out in pain. She reached the end of the aisle and turned to meet him. He had been expecting her, but she had been expecting him to expect her. As soon as she rounded the corner, Hikaru leaped into the air and somersaulted, flying over the robber's head and landing behind him. The surprised man did not react quickly enough to avoid a bullet in the shoulder. It was Hikaru's last.

On an intellectual level, Hikaru had surmised that her bullets hitting non-vital areas would have little effect. That realization had failed to fully dawn on her until now. Her opponent swung around and threw his fist at her face. His shoulder had received a bullet and his fist had received two others. Besides that, a Magnum bullet had hit that very hand only a few days ago. Yet, he moved as if he had only been cut. His bones should have been broken by now, but they were not. Hikaru had just enough time to absorb these facts before she instinctively brought up one hand and struck his arm to the side. She grunted at the impact of her arm against his. He was very strong, and she hadn't had time to get balanced properly. For all that, her opponent was a surprisingly slow fighter. He obviously had never had any formal training in the martial arts. Hikaru had studied martial arts all her life.

Hikaru threw her gun aside and dodged another punch. Then she quickly moved past his fist toward him and threw her own counterstrike. At this point, she was still hoping that she could knock him unconscious somehow and keep him alive for questioning later. Her attack was an index knuckle aimed directly below the eyehole of his ski mask. Her aim was perfect, and her opponent flinched back as his hand instinctively covered his eye. While she was still close, Hikaru took the opportunity to drive her elbow into his solar plexus. Now, he was staggering back, and Hikaru helped him along by spinning around and using her momentum to deliver a stunning back kick to his head. He jacknifed backwards to land jarringly on the floor. Then he began to get back up. In his hand was a knife.

Hikaru was not in the least bit afraid of being killed by the knife. She had learned his fighting style by now, and she knew that she could dodge anything he threw at her. There was still some hope of keeping him alive. He lunged forward with his knife extended. He had too much forward momentum, and Hikaru used it against him by dodging to the side, grabbing his hand and pulling sharply down and backwards causing him to flip over to land on his back. Hikaru deftly applied a nikkio wrist lock causing him to gasp in pain and drop his knife. She now had him exactly where she wanted: on the ground where she could apply more pressure to his wrist if he tried to get up.

That was the theory anyway. To her consternation, the thug on the floor before her began to wriggle about in an attempt to get up despite her wrist lock. She desperately leaned her full weight on him, but his wrist would not break. If Hikaru had a weakness as a fighter, it was her relatively light weight which made it easy for opponents to defeat her in a contest of pure strength. With her extensive repertoire of joint locks and pressure point attacks, Hikaru was more than able to make up for that shortcoming, but such techniques only worked on people who care about whether they will ever be able to use their hands again. This man seemed not only capable of ignoring the pain but also able to shrug off the immense pressure being applied to his bones and tendons. He managed to throw her balance slightly and quickly took advantage by kicking upwards at her. She was forced to let go and dodge away which gave him enough time to get back to his feet. By that time, he had another knife in his hand.

As he advanced on her, she used a quick crescent kick to deflect his knife and then drove her heel into his face causing his head to snap back. She quickly followed that up by jabbing a knuckle into his throat, then taking one step forward to drive her knee into his stomach. Still moving forward, she turned slightly and drove her elbow into the small of his back, and he went down again.

But it was not the fight that had told her that keeping him alive was hopeless. It had been what she saw in his eyes as he lunged at her with a knife. He was fully focused on her now, and he would not stop until he had killed her or he had been killed. With a sense of finality, Hikaru reached behind her back and drew a pair of sai. They were her favorite weapons, and she never went anywhere without them. As her opponent got up once more to slash at her with his knife, she deftly trapped the flat of his blade against her arm, then slashed at his stomach with the very tip of her own weapon. Then, as he bent forward, she leaned onto her front foot slightly and drove both of her weapons home. She watched as he stared in stupefied shock at the metal protruding from his chest, coughed once, and then slid off the blades with a strange gurgling sigh.

~-0-~

"He certainly isn't a normal person," the doctor later told Carrington and Hikaru. "For one thing, he is far too fit to be as poor as he looks. His blood oxygen levels are high enough to make him an Olympic marathon runner. A gold medal winning Olympic marathon runner. He also has very good muscle structure and his sensory organs are working perfectly. I wouldn't have thought much of it if I had seen it in a CI agent, but in a person off the streets who relies on robbery and presumably hasn't had the proper nutrition, it just seems impossible."

"I wonder what his bones were made of," Hikaru said as she rubbed one of her wrists. "I still have bruises from blocking his punches."

"Whatever his bones were made of, they weren't made of calcium. It appears to be made out of something stronger than that. It's organic, so it can probably be created by regular biological processes. But that kind of thing would take several million years to evolve in our species."

"Our species," Carrington repeated. His expression was thoughtful. "Are you suggesting that he is not human, then?"

The doctor knew Carrington, and so he was allowed to be a little more imaginative. "Sir, I think there's something more. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something not quite human about the way he's set up. It's almost as if he was created in imitation by something other than nature. It's just little things–a capillary bed here and there that looks a little sparse, a little twist in the fingerprints. If I had seen them in a normal human, I wouldn't have given them a second thought, but with a person that I know isn't quite normal…well, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that he comes from somewhere other than Earth, sir."

Carrington sighed. "I thought the Maians were supposed to warn us if anything approached from outer space."

"We don't know that he's from outer space yet, Dad," Hikaru pointed out. "What's the use of worrying about it now?"

"I'm just afraid that if I stop worrying for one minute, I'll lose control of everything."

"Now that's not true." Hikaru got up and took hold of his hands. Then she began tugging until he got up onto his feet. "He's dead now. We don't have to worry about him until we want to. And we don't want to. We have a party to go to, remember?"

"God! I completely forgot about it!"

Hikaru smiled and pecked him on the cheek. "You have a lot to think about, Dad, but you sometimes lose sight of what's in front of you. You don't need to worry about that, though. That's what I'm for."

"Now don't you start mothering me. I swore that I would be rid of that once and for all many decades ago."

Hikaru laughed and led him out of the room. The doctor watched them both in amused wonder. Then he shook his head and returned to his office.

~-0-~

The party that Daniel Carrington and Hikaru Shinsuke attended was the typical kind of party among the elite. Full of extravagance and luxury and populated by the shallow denizens of the upper class, it was the kind of affair Carrington never missed an opportunity to disparage. There was apparently some business that he had to attend to at this party, but Hikaru secretly suspected her father's only real reason for attending was to play a little joke on everyone.

Carrington was wearing his usual conservative style which disappeared among the rich folk at the party. Hikaru's dress was quite different. It was a stylish garment made of black silk (Hikaru adored silk) on which were printed designs of lilies and flowers. Perhaps more interesting was the fact that although it covered her fairly well, it also clung to her lithe body closely enough to hint at contours that proved very interesting to any males within the vicinity.

Carrington immediately got the most attention, although Hikaru wasn't far behind. It was known that Carrington hated parties, but now he was here. On top of it all, he had a young woman on his arm just like all the other old rich men. Perhaps it says something about Hikaru that she did not mind the scrutiny and whispers at all. She simply followed Carrington onto the dance floor and allowed him to lead her through a waltz. That particular part had taken some practice. Hikaru had never danced a waltz before, but if she wasn't perfect, she was still good enough to keep the eyes of the company riveted on her. Hikaru carefully made sure to keep her eyes on her father's face as if he was the only person in the world she cared about. It wasn't too hard.

After the dance, Hikaru and Carrington separated to mingle with the other people at the party. Just for good measure, Hikaru planted a kiss on Carrington's cheek before he walked away. She quickly found herself fencing with a group of women who were clearly curious about her. They exchanged a few pleasantries first. Hikaru received several compliments on her dress and replied in turn. A few of them seemed surprised when she gave her name as "Hikaru Shinsuke Carrington." They didn't say it, but nobody had thought of Carrington as the marrying type. "You certainly are a lucky one," a woman in a red dress commented.

"I always thought so," Hikaru said with a smile.

"Quite frankly, I'm wondering what could have happened to him," another woman muttered. "Many of us have been chasing him for years. It's just like him to go off in secret."

Hikaru put her best look of confusion on her face. "I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean," she confessed.

"Why my dear girl, of course you know what I mean. Carrigton didn't let anybody know the wedding until today. He's probably been looking forward to this party for weeks just for the satisfaction of walking in here and watching everyone stare. It's so much like him. He's always playing tricks on us at parties."

Hikaru would have been bent over with laughter by now, but she was a first-rate actress, so she continued to look perplexed. "The wedding? Whose wedding might you be talking about?"

"Why yours! Whose did you think I might be talking about?"

Hikaru stared at the other woman and did her best not to overact her incomprehension. "But I'm not married." Then she allowed just the right amount of shock to creep into her face. "I'm sorry. Did you think that I was his wife?"

They were confused. They were very confused. The woman who had started it all said, "Well, you do share his last name."

Hikaru could blush at will. She employed that tactic now, and lowered her eyes slightly. "I'm sorry to confuse you, but I'm not married to him at all. I'm his daughter."

There was a stunned silence for a few seconds. The woman in red tried to salvage something. "I didn't know he ever had a daughter. Why didn't he ever tell anyone?"

"I wasn't his daughter until seven years ago," Hikaru explained softly. She was still blushing furiously, and so she excused herself and headed toward the ladies' room. It was not until she was very much out of earshot that she allowed the slightest of smiles to cross her face.

~-0-~

"Did you hear all that, Dad?"

Carrington grinned openly. He could afford to do that since he was in a private room. He switched his watch to SEND and said, "I could have sworn that I heard the expressions on their faces."

Hikaru's laughter sparkled through the speaker on his watch. "What did you think of my act?"

"Perfect. I really sometimes wonder why you haven't run off to Hollywood yet. You should be congratulated. I'm sure it was difficult to keep your composure."

Hikaru laughed again. "I have to get moving now. I can't stay in the toilet here forever."

"Yes, you probably should. I'll meet you out front in an hour."

"All right. Bye, Dad." Carrington's watch went silent. Now, he turned to the man who had been standing diffidently in a corner watching. "Well, now that I've had my fun, I suppose I'll have to get back to work again. Let's have your report, Logan."

Logan nodded once. "I'll keep it brief, sir. I've been keeping track of company purchases at United Motors. One thing I noticed was that several shipments of raw materials were being transported to particular areas. There are factories there that ostensibly produce engine parts, but that doesn't explain why they are receiving shipments of nitrates, phosphorus and carbon."

"Indeed. Either they've invented a new manufacturing process or they aren't producing engine parts at all."

"The latter appears to be the case. I did some digging, and I now have some strong evidence that United Motors has been using its manufacturing business as a front for research into robotics."

"Robotics? What kind of robots?"

"I'm afraid they are the worst kind of robots, sir. As nearly as I could tell, their goal was to create a robot indistinguishable from a human."

Carrington took a moment to absorb that. What Logan didn't know was that Hikaru had already met one of those robots. "To what end?" he wondered aloud.

"Speculation isn't my field, sir, but the files I found strongly hinted that these robots were to be used for espionage purposes. Their brains were specifically designed to transmit information back to their home base."

Carrington sighed. "And these robots would probably be physically superior to a real human?"

"I would guess that at the very least they would have superior strength and reflexes compared to the average human."

Carrington looked out over the party and began to wonder just how hard it was to tell one of these robots from a human. For all he could tell, his daughter was chatting with one of them right now. "It looks like that robber had a purpose after all."


	4. Chapter 3: Dark Secrets

**Chapter 3: Dark Secrets**

Hikaru had chosen to live in an apartment in the Carrington Institute's headquarters. As an agent who would probably be called on to perform missions at all times of the day, she needed quick access to the equipment she would need. Many other agents chose to live outside the building. Hikaru had never had any complaints about her place of residence. The apartment was merely a place to sleep. For all her other needs, she had access to a 70 story building equipped with a fitness center, movie theater, shops and no fewer than three restaurants. And Carrigton's daughter got a special discount from them all.

As she entered her room, she saw that the lights were on. "Shouldn't you be in bed, Jasleen?"

The head of a 15-year old girl peeked around a corner. "I can stay up as long as you can," Jasleen said challengingly.

Hikaru smiled wearily. "Jasleen, it's 11:45. In just a few minutes, it's going to be Saturday. Don't you feel the least bit tired?" Her eyes suddenly narrowed and she looked about for a moment. "Have you been staying up watching TV again?"

Jasleen stepped all the way into the room looking perplexed. "How did you know? I've got the volume turned down."

"My ears, remember? I can hear your TV buzzing even when you've got the mute turned on."

Jasleen sighed. "I'll never understand how that works. I can't hear a thing, and I'm standing a whole two meters closer to the TV than you are."

"A genetic thing, I suppose." Hikaru's expression softened. "I guess you did have a pretty hard week, after all."

Jasleen made a face. "Tell me about it. Mr. Hirschfield spent two days going over derivatives. It was the most boring thing I ever had to sit through."

"Why don't you let the school principal know that you aren't learning anything?"

Jasleen sat down on the couch in the room they shared. Hikaru sat down next to her. "I've already skipped two grades by now. There's nobody my age in any of my classes, and it only gets worse when I explain something they don't understand. They just can't stand the idea that I know more than them."

"I know what you mean," Hikaru said wryly. "The schools around here are a little slower than what you're used to in your home, aren't they? Well, I wouldn't worry about it too much. You just have to survive this year, and then you'll be done with high school. After that, you can get enrolled in CI's school and start your training."

Jasleen's eyes brightened. They always did at the prospect of becoming a CI agent. "Do you really think I could do it?"

"You certainly have the smarts for it." Jasleen's face shifted slightly. Hikaru knew that she was stifling a yawn. "I told you you're staying up too late."

Jasleen's rebellious spirit seemed to have disappeared for the moment. "Yeah, I guess so. You want to sleep on the top bunk tonight?"

"Actually, I might get called at any time, so I need to be ready. I'll take the couch tonight."

The other girl got up and stretched. "All right, then. Good night."

"Good night." Hikaru watched her walk into the other room. The sound emitted by the TV didn't stop. Hikaru smiled and slowly shook her head. Then she got up and walked into a separate room to get dressed for bed.

~-0-~

* * *

><p>Logan had seen a fair number of sleeping women in his life, but none of them had been quite like Hikaru. For one thing, most grown women don't clutch a teddy bear in their sleep. Therefore, Logan stopped for a moment to consider the slumbering form curled up on a couch before him. Then he shrugged mentally. Everybody had their idiosyncracies. He reached out and lightly touched her shoulder. Her eyes immediately opened, and she turned her head to face him. She smiled. "You must be Logan."<p>

"I am," he said.

She held the teddy bear out to him. "Have you ever met Snuffels? I think he wants to meet you."

Under the skilled manipulation of her fingers, the bear seemed to regard him for a moment with his head cocked over and then hold out his paw. He was very cleverly designed. He was unmistakably a polar bear, but just enough change had been made to make him look much less menacing than a real polar bear would. Logan reached out and shook the offered paw. "How do you do, Snuffels?"

"You disappoint me, Logan. I was expecting you to be at least a little surprised."

"I am surprised. I didn't know the Gund Corporation still produced this particular line."

Hikaru smiled. "Snuffels is a rather old line, isn't it. And this guy is pretty old. I've had him for about eighteen years now."

Suddenly, Logan understood. He had learned a few facts about her from Carrington. One of those was that she had been orphaned about nine years ago when her parents were killed in a fire. The apartment they had lived in had been completely destroyed. If this bear was as old as she said, then it was the very last remnant she had of her dead family. He felt something like pity rise within him, but then he remembered that he had a duty. "I've been sent to fetch you for your next mission."

Hikaru immediately rose and seemed to grow by about five years. "All right," she said in a tone that would have done any professional soldier proud. "Just give me a few minutes to change." She appeared to stop for a moment to consider something, and then handed Snuffels over to Logan. "Could you take care of him for a moment? He's not old enough to be with me when I'm changing."

Logan took Snuffels and watched her walk into another room. She would have made an interesting case for him had he pursued a career in psychiatry as originally planned. Even after nine years, she showed signs of still wanting to be the little girl who still had her parents. He looked down at the bear in his arms. It was gazing right back. There was something strangely understanding in that gaze. A certain sympathy, and at the same time, there seemed to be an absolute trust in Snuffels' eyes as he gazed up at the person holding him. Logan looked away.

~-0-~

* * *

><p>The mission had been as routine as a dangerous mission regarding national security could be. Mostly, it consisted of penetrating a building and avoiding all the assorted guards. That was easy for a person who could sprint faster than most and still remain absolutely silent at the same time. Getting past all the locked doors had been a different matter. For that, Hikaru had to rely on a palmtop computer that she carried on missions which could decode the electronic passwords on the doors. Jasleen had written the software for doing that in her spare time. Hikaru spared a moment to wonder how an untrained 15-year old like Jasleen could crack codes that stumped CI's best programmers. She shrugged. It wasn't her place to worry about it.<p>

And now she was standing in front of her goal. Carrington had explained United Motors' secret operations to her. In a computer somewhere was believed to be a list of all the robots that United Motors had manufactured. The fact that UM was manufacturing robot spies had tickled Hikaru. It was well known in the CI community that she detested cars manufactured by General Motors and that she had a strong preference for Honda.

Hikaru's mind snapped back to her current situation. In front of her was a computer that contained all the files she wanted. She quickly hooked up the computer she had brought along and began downloading. Jasleen had used a few tricks for this operation as well. Somehow, this download would be undetectable. Nobody looking through the computer would know that Hikaru had even been there.

Hikaru started the download and then sat down in a corner to wait. She idly watched the screen of her computer as data flowed in, reading the names as they appeared. Crane, Robert. Crew, Anna-Nicole. One of the robots, it appeared, had been elected to the position of mayor in a small town. Cromwell, John. Crondy, Jake. Czech, Alexandra. Dahl, Ernest.

Then she blinked and leaned forward. Tapping a key on the computer, she backtracked in the list. Selecting the file that had caught her eye, she opened it to see the profile. The profile contained everything that she had feared it would. Lifting the communicator to her voice, she spoke softly, "Bear, this is Yuurei." Bear was the codename for Daniel Carrington.

"Bear speaking. Go ahead, Yuurei."

"I've discovered a major security breach within CI."

"Please describe."

"If you could see the file I have here, I think you would understand immediately, sir."

"All right, Yuurei. Send that file to me by wireless. Use the standard encryption. I'll take a look at the file from here." Hikaru did that and waited tensely. On the other end, she heard Carrington swear in startled surprise. "Yuurei, return to base for an immediate debriefing. We'll use the personal location."

"Yes, sir." Hikaru glanced down at the palmtop in her hand. The download was complete. She took one last look at the name list in her hand and shook her head in disbelief. Dalton, Rebecca. Datton, Michael.

Dark, Joanna.


	5. Chapter 4: The Perfect Death

**Chapter 4: The Perfect Death**

Out of habit, Logan looked around at his surroundings before entering. He was in Hikaru's private apartment at CI headquarters. Daniel Carrington had called a top secret conference here because it was really the last place a potential spy would expect to find one. There was a young Indian girl sitting on the couch—she was probably the one named Jasleen that he had heard so much about. Sitting on a wooden chair was Carrington himself. Logan recognized CI's own Dr. O'Connor sitting on another wooden chair. As a medical doctor, she would be the best person to identify differences between these new robots and humans. Finally, Logan's gaze turned to Hikaru. She was sunk into an armchair, and for some obscure reason, she was cuddling Snuffels in her arms. The way she held him, Snuffels appeared to be peeking over her arms at all the people around. Having ascertained that there was nothing dangerous in the room, Logan sat down.

"Let's get started," Carrington said. "We know that United Motors has been manufacturing robots that are designed to be indistinguishable from humans. We are not exactly certain of their purpose, but perhaps Logan can shed some light on that. Let's start with you, Dr. O'Connor. How exactly does one tell a robot from a human?"

Dr. O'Connor cleared her throat. "I'm not so sure that we should call them robots, sir," she began in her deep voice. "That robber you brought in for me to examine was about as close as one could get to being a human without actually being human. I've done a study on the compounds that make up his body, and they are based on carbon just like any human. In addition, the chemical makeup of his muscles, nerves, organs and body fluids were 99% identical to that of a human. He could eat, breathe, sleep and go to the bathroom. He could even grow. His body is made up of cells that have their own artificial DNA. I could tell that the DNA was artificial, but only because I was looking for it. Any normal test would not have noticed. If I were inhabiting that body, I probably wouldn't know that I was anything other than human." She paused a moment to let that sink in. "There were only two major differences that I could detect. One was the bone structure. His bones were made out of something very much like human bones but not quite. They were made out of a complex compound that would be almost impossible for nature to produce on its own. However, the standard tests used all over the world do not analyze the makeup of bones. The bones of this robot were obviously designed to be extremely strong, and under an X-ray, they would have appeared completely normal."

"It makes a certain amount of sense," Logan said. "What I gathered about the manufacturing process indicated that most of the materials were created by growing. Muscles, nerves and skin were grown in a special liquid containing all the nutrients they would need. Somehow, all of this was fashioned together to form something exactly identical to human flesh. My guess is that bones grew too slowly and had to be manufactured instead. United Motors probably decided to use some especially strong stuff for their combat models. After that, they inserted the organs and wrapped the flesh around the skeleton."

"It's a technical marvel," Dr. O'Connor said. "I would never have believed that it was possible. Hundreds of factors have to be taken into account, and everything must be within millimeters of the right place. Otherwise, the body wouldn't even live."

"My investigations indicated that there were quite a number of failures," Logan said.

"You mentioned two major differences between an organic human and a robot," Carrington said. "Bones was one of them. And the other?"

"The brain," said Dr. O'Connor. "In fact, the brain is radically different from a human one. Perhaps this is because United Motors did not understand the exact nature of the brain. At any rate, the robot I analyzed was equipped with a brain made out of a combination of computer circuitry and organic nerves. Somebody performing brain surgery on him would have noticed immediately. Evidently, our wily car manufacturer decided that standard techniques would not detect that brain. They were right. X-rays do not penetrate the skull, and any radiation capable of passing through the skull would fry the brain inside. The only tests that can detect the difference would be a CAT scan or MRI, but that procedure is only used on patients who have something wrong with their brains. Electronics don't develop schizophrenia or grow cancer tumors, so those brains are reasonably safe from detection."

Hikaru spoke now. "You say that aside from the skeleton and the brain, the robot was identical to a human?" Dr. O'Connor nodded. "He was made up of cells which multiplied, interacted with each other and consumed the exact same nutrients as a human?" Dr. O'Connor nodded again. Hikaru was clearly struggling with something. "Then he was alive?"

"By most definitions, he was," Dr. O'Connor said quietly. "He could probably reproduce with another woman as well. As I said before, I wouldn't really call him a robot. He was created by people, but he was living."

Carrington spoke the words that were on everyone's mind at that point. "So Joanna was a living being after all." There was a short silence. "If we are to consider these…artificial organisms as human, we should treat them as such. That means we don't kill them unless they threaten someone. You said that they broadcast the information they received back to United Motors?" The last question was directed at Logan.

Logan nodded. "I suspect that the circuitry of their brains contained a weak transmitter that broadcasts sight, sound and perhaps other senses back to their base. If you want to neutralize them, the best way would be to simply make sure they don't send anything back to United Motors."

"That's where you come in, Jasleen," Carrington said. "You're the technical genius at CI here. I want you to get to work on that brain to see if you can neutralize the transmitter in some way without deactivating the brain itself. We'll put you at the head of a team."

Jasleen was not used to having the full attention of CI's director, so she only nodded her head at first. Then, apparently summoning the strength, she spoke. "It would be very handy if I could have the design specs for that brain. That way, I'd know exactly where to look."

Carrington turned to Logan. Logan shook his head very slightly. "I wasn't able to get my hands on any design specifications whatsoever. They were too well-guarded. I was posing as a janitor, so there was no way that I had the authority to access the room containing those papers. They'll have to be taken by force."

"That's my specialty," Hikaru said. "With all due respect, Dad, I think I'm up to the job."

"I was thinking the same thing myself," Carrington said. "We'll have to take some time to gather all the necessary equipment, but I want it done as soon as possible. Do you think you will be ready for a mission tomorrow night?"

Hikaru nodded and got up. "I'll be ready," she said quietly. Immediately, Logan had an idea of how she had earned her A++ rating. Behind the excitable girl who clutched a teddy bear in her sleep was a woman who knew exactly what she was doing at every moment. Already, he could see that she was planning which weapons to take and preparing a solution for every obstacle she was likely to face. Those were the marks of an elite secret agent. "I'll go practice at the range. I need to sharpen up a little."

Carrington smiled slightly. "You can already hit 493 out of 500 shots on a target 20 meters away. What do you need sharpening up for?"

Hikaru grinned. "That means it's time for me to practice on a target 30 meters away." She set Snuffels down on the seat she had recently vacated and started for the door. Carrington also got up.

"I think I'll come along and watch," he said. "I think we're done with this meeting. Go back to your regular duties. As always, none of what we talked about leaves this room." Nobody even nodded. They merely got up and filed out of Hikaru's room.

~-0-~

It had just been a routine visit, at the time. CI had been trying to find out where a particular boy had disappeared to, and for lack of anything better to do at the time, Carrington had elected to personally look at the records of a particular orphanage. His search would prove to yield more than he had bargained for.

The office of the headmistress had a window into the play area so that she could keep on eye on the children while attending to other business. There were other caretakers, of course, but this was a very hands-on headmistress. Carrington looked through that window now as the headmistress searched her files for the name he was looking for. Suddenly, he lost interest in his original task.

"I'm sorry," the headmistress said. "That boy wasn't adopted here."

"That's all right," Carrington said expansively. "It was a rather slim chance anyway. Who's that girl sitting with a bear in the corner?"

"Hmm? Oh her. We don't know who she is, unfortunately. There aren't any missing children reports matching her description, and she won't talk to anyone. Our psychiatrist thinks she probably lost her parents in some traumatic incident, but we haven't been able to find out what that incident might be." The headmistress shook her head. "A very sad case. She eats and does very well in school although we may have put her in the wrong grade since we don't know how old she is. Most of the time, she just seems like a ghost. She won't relate to anyone. I'm afraid that she may just end up in confinement, and none of it is her fault."

Carrington was not a man to shrink from a challenge, and besides, he had been thinking more about his own childless state these days. He had a permanent enough legacy as the founder and namesake of the Carrington Institute, but he had yet to leave his own imprint on a human. This girl seemed to be at that stage when she had finished most of her physical growing up but was still not quite a full blown woman. She might just be the very one for him if he could reach her.

As the dubious headmistress opened the door to the recreation room, all the children inside immediately looked up hopefully. They would all have to be disappointed, Carrington thought with at inward sigh. He couldn't save them all. He did his best to ignore their pleading stares and concentrate only on the silent girl in the corner who as of yet hadn't even acknowledged his presence.

As he drew near, he saw what he hadn't been able to see from the headmistress's office: the girl had been reading. Carrington recognized the stylized kanji characters in her book, and an idea began to form in his head. She finally looked up when he pulled up a chair and sat down before her.

"Konichi-wa, shoujo," Carrington began. She blinked and seemed to scrutinize him more closely. He smiled and continued on in Japanese. "Ah, surprised that a gaijin like me could speak your language. Not everyone is what you think they are at first. What's that you're reading?"

She didn't take her eyes off his as she raised the cover of her book for him to see. "The Art of War by Sun Tzu," he read out loud. "A good book although I hope that was translated well from the original Chinese. Do you want to be a general when you grow up?" She shrugged, but he detected the thoughts hidden behind her face. "A general is a very lonely person," he said quietly. "Believe me, I know. The general has no family and few friends. A general exists only for the purpose of making war. Is that what you want?" Her expression told him the answer in clear enough terms. "I think you and I have something to offer each other. I can see strength in your soul. So soon after this tragedy, you are standing tall and proud again. I need strength like that. And in return…perhaps I can offer you a different life. Something other than the general. If you'll let me."

She put her book down and thrust her bear towards him. Carrington chuckled. "Why hello there. And who might you be?"

The girl was very skilled at manipulating her bear. It even seemed to breathe as she applied a slight rhythmic pressure on its chest. "Are you a friend of hers?" Carrington asked it. The white furry face twisted around to glance at Hikaru and then turned back to Carrington to nod slightly. "I'll bet she treats you well." Two paws raised to each side: a shrug. Then one of the paws was extended toward him. Carrington had the distinct feeling that this was a test for him as he shook it.

"My name is Daniel Carrington," he said gravely.

He wouldn't learn that day about the fire that had killed her parents or how she had stumbled in a daze through the streets until the police picked her up. He wouldn't even find out her age that day. All of that would come later. What was most important was that she lowered the bear, looked directly back into his eyes, and said, "My name is Hikaru Shinsuke."

~-0-~

Hikaru walked down the hall towards the shooting range. Carrington was walking beside her. He was very quiet at the moment. Usually, he was all too willing to banter with her about a wide range of topics. Finally, Hikaru spoke. "You still haven't gotten over the shock two nights ago, have you Dad? You still can't believe that about Joanna?"

Carrington sighed. "She would have been the very last person I would have suspected," he said. "She was absolutely dedicated to her job. She could have betrayed me any number of times, but she never did up until the end."

"She probably didn't even know that she was anything other than human."

"No, probably not. But all the same, it's eerie to think about. All the times when I talked with her, I was talking to a thing—a thing that was built by other human beings."

"You heard what Dr. O'Connor said. She was alive."

"That's true. It makes me feel better. These revelations also give me an idea about how she died."

Hikaru immediately began to pay close attention. Her father had never told her anything about Perfect Dark's death. "Do you think United Motors was responsible?"

Carrington nodded. "She was killed while investigating United Motors for something completely different from what we are concerned with now. united Motors must have known through her transmitter that she would be breaking into one of their buildings." He paused as his mind drifted back nine years to the moment when he had seen that fire. "And so, they set a trap for her. I don't know why they couldn't have stopped her some other way. Maybe there was no way for them to give her direct commands. At any rate, Joanna entered the building only to find that it had been evacuated. She immediately suspected something and told us so using her communicator. That was when the building she was in exploded." Carrington paused again. "It wouldn't really be so bad if it weren't for the fact that there was not a single shred of her left for us to recover afterwards."

~-0-~

Carrington had not told her that she would be performing a raid on the exact same building where Joanna had died. Hikaru had later found that out from Logan. Evidently, he had been nearby when the building had exploded, and his trained memory could recall every last detail. There was not trace of that explosion nine years ago, of course. A new building had been built by United Motors over the original one. Logan had provided her with blueprints. Somehow, he had managed to determine exactly which room would contain the files she needed. He was a great undercover agent, that much was certain.

The building was heavily guarded at night. Hikaru would have no problem bypassing human guards, but the security cameras were another problem. If she tried to avoid all of them, it would take her all night to obtain her objective. She needed enough time to get out of the building before day time, so taking that long was out of the question.

Instead, Hikaru elected to take the exact opposite road. Having entered the building through the roof and run past a number of guards on her silent feet, she encountered a split in the hallway. One hallway led directly to the room she wanted. Hikaru trotted down that hallway until she saw the security camera. Drawing her Falcon 3, she took aim and fired. Then she turned around and ran to the other hallway. The security officers would notice that the camera had been destroyed. Hikaru was counting on that. Anyone could figure out what her objective is, and that camera lay directly in the path that a smart agent would use to obtain the objective. Therefore, nobody would be watching the path that Hikaru really took.

The camera in the hallway Hikaru was running down was easily bypassed. Hikaru had only to crawl along the ceiling to avoid the viewing range of the camera which was pointed downward. Coming to the front of the building, Hikaru found a lobby with a foyer. She was on the tenth floor, and she wanted to get to the fifth. Attaching a rope to the railing, she slipped over the side and lowered herself down to the sixth floor. As she ran towards her objective, Hikaru destroyed several other cameras. They were all placed exactly in the path she was supposed to take but that she did not actually take. Hikaru could imagine that the security officers were growing very perplexed by now.

Finally, Hikaru arrived at the doorway to the room. Standing in front of the door were ten guards. United Motors was taking this threat very seriously. After peering around the corner, Hikaru drew back and readied her weapon. Her primary weapon on this mission was the CI-developed X-33. Like the Falcon 3, it used railgun technology to send its projectiles along. Thus, it was absolutely silent. As an added bonus, it had a special variable size barrel that could accept virtually any type of ammunition. Hikaru was using 7.62 mm bullets. Her powerful railgun could send those bullets along so fast that kevlar armor was useless. Leaning back around the corner, Hikaru opened fire. She was able to drop four of them before they reacted enough to return fire. At that point, she drew back. Two of the guards stayed behind while the other four survivors walked off toward her position. At least, they walked toward the position she had occupied seconds before. By this time, Hikaru had run back down the hallway and circled around until she was approaching from a different direction. Taking aim, she dropped the two guards in front of the door. They fell, and the only noise that anyone could hear was the sound of their heads hitting the floor. Walking up to the door, Hikaru faced the other four guards who had not heard the exchange of fire. She put a bullet into the backs of their heads before they knew what had happened.

Hikaru set an explosive on the reinforced door and set the timer to 5 seconds. The door was tough, but nothing could stand up to the special explosive developed by CI. Walking through the blasted remains of the door, Hikaru immediately saw the computer she was looking for. She pulled a palmtop out and connected it to the other computer. While it was downloading, she reloaded her gun and stood guard. That was when she noticed the other contents of the room. Specifically, she saw the tattered remain of a blue ninja suit. Then she understood. Carrington Institute had not been able to find Joanna's remains because United Motors had gotten to them first. This wasn't in her mission profile, but it was a matter of pride. Grabbing the palmtop which had finished downloading, Hikaru smashed the glass which protected the ninja suit. Clutching what was left of the perfect agent, Hikaru ran down the hallway to reach her exit.


	6. Chapter 5: The Hunted

**Chapter 5: The Hunted**

Hikaru and Jasleen were sitting on opposite ends of a table in their apartment. Between them was a 19 by 19 grid with black and white stones placed on various intersections. Snuffels sat nearby seeming to watch the game with great interest.

"Something's bothering you." Jasleen did not look up from the board as she spoke. On the other hand, Hikaru did take her eyes off the board long enough to look at Jasleen.

"I suppose you could tell by the way I was playing," she said.

Jasleen nodded. She picked up one of the white stones that sat in a pile at her elbow and placed it on the board. Jasleen and Hikaru were playing the ancient Japanese board game go. The rules were simple: players place stones one by one until one player manages to surround the other's stones with his own. The strategies behind the game were so complex that even today, no computer had ever been built which could anticipate more than a few moves in advance. The Japanese believed that the way one played the game reflected one's view of life. Hikaru had been playing the game all her life, and so she would recognize the style of any previous opponent without being able to see her opponent's face. Jasleen was starting to get the idea of the game as well.

"Is it about that suit you found?" Jasleen asked.

Hikaru nodded and placed a black stone on the board. She was winning, but the victory was not nearly as easy as it had been before. Jasleen had improved greatly in only a few weeks of playing. "They found the remains of Joanna's DNA on the suit," Hikaru said. "There was a lot of dried blood on it as well."

"But you still think there's something wrong?" Jasleen placed another stone. She was being cautious in her moves.

"It's hard to put my finger on it." Hikaru frowned for a moment in concentration, then placed one of her black stones in Jasleen's territory. If she did this right, she would capture several of Jasleen's pieces. "How's the work going on those brains?"

Jasleen sighed. "Not well. There are billions of pathways, and they all work together to form the brain. Having one of them out of place would change the makeup of the brain altogether. That brain I'm working on must be a few orders of magnitude more complex than a Cray supercomputer. I've been able to isolate regions by function, but not much more. I still can't believe that it was created by humans."

"Maybe it wasn't at that," Hikaru said. "I'm sure the Skedar or Maians would know a thing or two about creating such a brain."

"That would imply that United Motors had contact with these aliens a long time ago, wouldn't it?"

Hikaru nodded. "It's scary to think, but UM might have been in contact with aliens since the last century if aliens helped them build bio-androids."

Jasleen placed a stone and neatly thwarted Hikaru's attempt to capture her stones. "No use worrying about it, I suppose. We don't want to start getting Mirror Syndrome." Mirror Syndrome was a CI term used for extreme paranoia. In the edgy business that they engaged in, CI agents could easily fall into the trap of losing trust for everyone, including close friends. Everybody had to take it seriously, and so Hikaru didn't smile. She merely placed another stone and then began to gently scratch Snuffels' ears while she waited for Jasleen to make a move.

~-0-~

_All right, Joanna, let's see what made you so famous around these parts. Hmmm…big file you've got. I guess that's only natural for someone who saved the world from being enslaved by aliens from outer space. 26 years old when you got your callsign. Not as young as me, but still young. Your measurements are 5'7" and 34-28-34…oh, this was back in the day when CI was on that stupid inches and feet system. Let's see, multiply by 2.54, carry the 2…nice figure. You would have filled out that suit pretty well back when it was still in one piece._

_Broke the learning curve in training. Well, you did exercise 53 in 3:47. Sorry, Joanna. I'm afraid I broke that record. Couldn't manage to break some of your others, though. They've stood for over a decade. That initself has to be some kind of record. I wonder how much being a bio-android mattered. I'll have to ask Dr. O'Connor. Dad must have jumped at the chance to see you in action._

_Says here you are considered dead after an explosion during one of your investigations into United Motors. Well, if Logan's information is right, they knew everything that you were doing at any time. It wouldn't have been hard to arrange your death. You were only looking into a case of industrial espionage, but you must have gotten close to something they didn't want you to see. Doesn't take a genius to guess what that might have been._

_Body wasn't recovered. UM probably has it now. I wonder what happened after that. Maybe they just recycled you. I have the feeling that if we found you, we could unravel a lot about this whole business. Well, don't worry about that. If I know Dad, he'll turn the world upside down and shake it to find you now that he has some inkling about where you are._

Hikaru suddenly turned from her computer screen and narrowed her eyes slightly. Then she smiled slightly and turned in her swivel chair to face the entrance to her apartment, crossing her legs in the process and leaning back. Then she tapped a button on her desk. The door slid away to reveal Logan standing just outside with his hand still raised to ring her doorbell. As usual, he didn't show any sign of surprise. He simply let his hand drop and stepped through the door that had opened up before him as if sensing his presence.

He turned to glance back at the door as it slid shut. "I didn't think it was possible to hear a person approach through that door."

"It isn't," Hikaru said as she stood up to walk to the kitchen. "But you walk too heavily. I could feel your footsteps right through my chair."

"I was never the top stealth agent anyway."

"Drink?"

"No, thank you. I'm just here to tell you that you have a mission."

Hikaru made an inquisitive sound as she opened her refrigerator.

"There's a hostage situation. Negotiations have broken down. The subjects made completely unrealistic demands. Either they've lost touch with reality or they never intended to be talked down in the first place. They'll have to be taken out."

"What's wrong with sending in a SWAT team?" Hikaru asked as she emerged from the kitchen shaking a bottle of orange juice.

"Your particular expertise is required."

She glanced at him for an instant to confirm her suspicions. "One of those, huh?"

Logan nodded. Hikaru looked down at her still unopened bottle, then shrugged and brought it along as she walked out of her apartment towards the elevator to mission central.

~-0-~

Today, one of the local malls had been taken over by armed hoodlums. Perhaps a better word to describe them would have been terrorists. They certainly did not seem to be interested in the usual concerns of a criminal. None of the innocent civilians held hostage were robbed nor even physically harmed. They were simply herded into the largest store in the mall and made to sit down. A security guard had been seriously injured, however. Cameras located in the mall had clearly caught him pulling a gun on one of the terrorists and shooting him squarely in the head. The terrorist had reeled back and then quickly disarmed the guard.

Ever since saving the President's life over a decade ago, the Carrington Institute had been privy to the inside story on developing current events and provided help from time to time with technology gained from theMaians. CI theoretically worked pro bono—although it was sometimes compensated for the trouble—which meant it had no government oversight. Direct and overt action by CI was so rare and so consistently successful that rumblings about vigilantism were kept to a minimum. Although few outside the Institute had any inkling of what its agenda might be, the top officials in the government were convinced at any rate that endangering human lives or national security was not part of it.

And so, after Carrington had made a few phone calls and demonstrated clearly that the ones behind the current hostage crisis were not quite ordinary humans, he had secured permission from the head of the FBI to send his own operatives to deal with the situation. Of course, nobody in the lower levels of the government was allowed to know that outsiders were becoming involved, so Hikaru and her group had to pose as FBI specialists and convince the police on the scene to let them handle the situation. That proved to take some time. FBI uniforms and badges weren't quite enough.

Hikaru looked up as she saw the Chicago police chief approach. "Just got off the phone with Mclean. They confirmed you. Sorry about the delay, but I wasn't informed that you'd be coming."

"Not a problem," Hikaru said. "You're just doing your job."

"I'm still a little unclear on why the Feds want to take care of this," the chief admitted.

Hikaru looked at him for a moment. He was a thoroughly competent looking man and was not the type to be asking such questions just because his feathers had been ruffled by Feds interfering in his jurisdiction. Hikaru decided it was safe to trust him with a little information. "You've seen the surveillance videos?" she asked. The chief nodded. "So you know that one of them was shot in the head and survived apparently no worse for it?"

The chief did know, and he nodded somberly. "I thought it might have been a fluke of some sort, but apparently not. Is there something I don't know?"

"If there is, it's classified." Hikaru smiled apologetically. "Don't worry about it. We're just as concerned as you are about getting those people out. You just make sure we aren't bothered while we're in there."

The chief shrugged. "Good luck." With that, he turned and walked to where his SWAT team was waiting to give them the news. Thoroughly competent. Hikaru stood up from where she had been leaning against a nearby car, picked up a case lying on the ground which contained her X-33 and began to run towards an unmarked van that was parked at the corner. She pumped her fist three times in the air to indicate that clearance was given. The back of the van immediately opened and a group of operatives dressed in SWAT uniforms hopped out. The team leader was an experienced CI agent with the call sign Derelict—although the man himself was an Olympic quality athlete. Hikaru heard his voice over her earpiece now. "Central, this is Alpha Team Leader. We are live. Repeat. Alpha Team is live."

"Copy that, Alpha Team. Switch on video." Like everybody else, Hikaru tapped a button on her belt that activated a mini-camera attached to the left side of her head. By this time, she had caught up to the rest of her team jogging along.

"What do we have on intel?" she asked Derelict.

"Six bogeys total. Four with the hostages on the lower level of Sears. Two standing guard on the upper level. Armed with AK-57s and wearing standard army vests. They're all stationary."

Hikaru nodded. That was more or less what they had all expected. "So what's the P.O.A.?" she asked using the short term for Plan Of Attack.

"Double flash-bang on the lower level. Snipers will take out the higher bogeys with throat shots."

"Cruel, but effective."

"Uh-huh. You're going to be taking the other four from the side just like we talked about. We found a blind spot where you can fire from behind some clothes. Hokkaido will guide you there. It'll be a little tricky, but I heard you broke the record in the stealth test."

It really was inevitable, Hikaru thought wryly. As the only person around who had ever defeated a bio-android in combat, she now had the rather unenviable role of being the first to attack any other bio-androids that caused trouble. She could already sense that the other agents were curious about how their new hotshot teammate would perform on this mission. The situation was not really as dire as it might have appeared at first. The bones of her opponents were impervious to standard gunfire, but tests carried out on the robber's skeleton had indicated that a 9-mm rifle bullet fired from an X-33 would penetrate far enough into the skull to destroy the brain. Hikaru herself was wearing body armor that was light and flexible but strong enough to stop at least a few shots from the weapons that the terrorists were carrying. Bio-androids did not really have any advantage in strength over a human, and at any rate, Hikaru had proven that it was possible to outrun one of them. In addition, Hikaru had the element of surprise on her side.

They had reached the garage by now and stopped while everyone got their gear together. Hikaru took the opportunity to assemble her X-33 which had remained in its case because CI regulations did not allow outsiders to see it. The team's two snipers were already entering the building and taking up positions. Stamper, the demolitions expert, began preparing the two flash-bangs on their carts. The other two team members waited patiently.

"Let's have a time check, Central," Derelict said.

"Roger that. We're sending out the synchronization signal. The time is 15:23:45. Mark."

Everybody glanced at their watches and confirmed that the time had been set correctly. Hikaru had finished putting together the X-33 by now. She sighted along the top and squeezed the trigger twice to check the mechanism before loading in a magazine. Stamper had already finished and was putting one of the flash-bangs into her pack.

"All ready?" Derelict asked.

"Good to go," said Stamper.

"Ready," Hikaru affirmed.

"Snipers, what's your status?"

"Hokkaido is in position. Target in sight."

"Raven here. I'm up close and personal with my target's Adam's apple."

"All right. We're going in." Derelict turned to address Hikaru seriously. "We're counting on you to kill those four. If they're really bulletproof, there won't be anything we can do if things go wrong."

"I'll get them," Hikaru affirmed. "I also broke the speed shooting record."

"That's always useful." They were coming within visual range of their targets now. Derelict gave Hikaru a quick pat on the shoulder. "Good luck." With that, they all headed to their assigned positions. For Hikaru, that meant walking right into the Sears entrance within the mall, staying low and to the side to avoid notice. The terrorists and their hostages were too far within the store to see her entering even if she sauntered in completely upright, but reducing one's profile is a good habit in any combat situation.

"Hokkaido here. One of the lower level bogeys just headed out to the bathroom. Yuurei, he's headed to your position."

Hikaru looked around for a half panicked instant before getting up to sprint into a nearby store and slide to lie prone below the window display.

"Raven here. I can see him. He's walking past the store that Yuurei jumped into."

"Will he notice if I scope him?" Hikaru asked.

"Negative. He doesn't look worried about that."

Among all the other high-tech gadgets agents had, one tool that they never went anywhere without was a small mirror attached to a stick that could be used for looking around corners. Hikaru used it now to peek out her window display. "I see him." She paused to look more closely at the image in her mirror. "What happened to him? He doesn't look too happy."

"Started walking like that suddenly," Hokkaido answered. "Something gave him a case of diarrhea is my guess."

"I guess we can't expect him to come back for some time," Derelict commented.

"Maybe his comrades won't be either," Hikaru said. "Team Leader, if I take him now, I'll only have three to deal with at flash time. Request permission to eliminate him."

"Stand by, Yuurei. Raven, where's the restroom?"

"Three stores down from the one Yuurei is hiding in. She'll be walking away from the hot zone."

"Hokkaido, what did he do before leaving his position?"

"Shouted something to the others. Jumped up and down a few times to show how serious he was."

"What was their reaction?"

"Amused. Like they knew it was going to happen."

Hikaru heard the calculations being made in Derelict's head. Finally, he said, "Well, we may be in luck. Yuurei, permission granted to eliminate bogey in the bathroom. Is he in there yet, Raven?"

"Affirmative, Team Leader."

"Go, Yuurei." Hikaru didn't wait to be told twice. Getting up to her feet, she ran silently away from Sears until she saw a sign directing her to the men's room.

Cautiously entering the bathroom, she saw nobody standing at a urinal. Looking at the stall, she saw a pair of feet pointed toward the door. A moment later, she heard some distinctive sounds that told her exactly what he was doing in the stall. She almost felt sorry for him. Slipping forward on her silent feet, she stood in front of the door. She stopped a moment to collect herself, then raised her foot and kicked the door in. She waited a moment while her victim gasped and then struggled to raise his gun and pants at the same time. Finally, she gave him a double tap on the head, and he fell back. She heard her father chuckle back at CI headquarters.

"Well done, Yuurei."

"What's so funny?" Derelict inquired.

"Caught him with his pants down," Hikaru said sweetly.

She heard a dry chuckle from several team members. "I'll have to see that on replay. Now get back to position."

Hikaru grinned and then carefully exited the bathroom.

She wasn't smiling by the time she entered the store, however, as focused as she was on keeping her movements as quiet as possible. After what seemed like hours, she reached the refrigerator section. This was as close as she could safely get to the terrorists without risking notice. She would have to rely on Hokkaido and his superior vantage point to guide her. After a moment of standing where she was, however, she received no signal that the sniper could see her. These kinds of maneuvers were some of the most dangerous ones that could be performed in a hostage rescue mission. Her teammates did not know where she was and would not even know if she were unexpectedly killed. She in turn did not know the locations of anyone who might spot her—thus rendering her effectively blind—and could not verbally communicate with her team for fear of the sound of her voice alerting the terrorists to her presence. She finally decided to tap out a call for help on her transceiver in Morse code. When she got closer, the clicking of her button would be too loud to use even that.

_Hokkaido, this is Yuurei. Can you see me._

"That's a negative, Yuurei. Alpha Team, does anybody have a visual on Yuurei?"

Negative answers quickly flew in from everyone. "Central, we need a location for Yuurei," said Derelict

"Roger that, Alpha Team Leader. Beacon trace puts her 55 meters south of Hokkaido."

"That's too far away from me. The second floor is in the way. She needs to get within 40 meters of me."

_There is not enough cover for me to go forward without knowing where my targets are looking._

"None of them are looking your way right now. You can move to a better position."

When Hikaru looked, she could see an aisle lined with refrigerators on both sides that would afford enough cover for her to advance closer. She would have to step momentarily out into the open in order to get there, however. She spared an instant to pray that Hokkaido was watching the terrorists carefully before quickly sprinting across to the aisle. Once there, she began moving north towards the terrorists and their hostages.

"I see you, Yuurei. You've got a pretty good path to your position. You need to turn right and move all the way to the wall before turning left to keep advancing. There's only one bogey who can possibly see you at any time. Don't move yet." Hikaru obligingly froze in her tracks. "Go." Hikaru moved.

"Now, you want to move into the last aisle. Yes, that one. Now turn right and head towards me again. It's all right. You're clear. Now hide behind those fridges."

Hikaru crouched behind a row of small refrigerators meant to be used in college dormitories. She had seen her targets several times by now, but so far, they had not detected her. She could not be more than 20 meters away from them by now.

"Now here's the question: do we move you any closer or not? Your ideal spot is behind that column around the corner and a little to the left. That'll put you right on top of them at flash time. Go ahead and take a peak now."

Hikaru peeked and saw what Hokkaido was referring to. The upright column was easily wide enough for her to hide behind even though she would be less than 10 meters from the nearest terrorist. A quick scan confirmed to her that this would be no harder than running past a patrolling guard. She withdrew back.

"What do you think?" Hokkaido asked. "Can you make it?"

Hikaru tapped her head twice to indicate an affirmative answer.

"All right. They're getting bored and starting a conversation with each other. You can make your move…now."

In another second, Hikaru was sitting with her gun feeling that if the column were not behind her back, she would practically be sitting among the hostages.

"Alpha Team, Yuurei is in position."

"Copy that, Hokkaido. Stamper, what's your status?"

"Flash-bangs ready and waiting."

"All right, acclimation period begins. Muffs on at 16:12. Flash time is 16:13."

The time now was 16:10. Derelict clearly did not wish to leave her sitting close to the terrorists for too long. She mentally ran over the position of each of her targets from the glimpses of them she had received. She decided to only use one shot on each terrorist. The flash-bangs would leave the victims disoriented for about five seconds. As a stretch of time went, that was fairly long, but she would be wasting time by double-tapping each terrorist. She would just have to trust that the technicians had known what they were talking about when they told her that one shot would do. Her recent experience in the men's room certainly seemed to indicate so.

The CI version of the flash-bang on this mission resembled a remote-controlled car. The explosive device was within that car. Stamper had set up two flash-bangs, the second to explode just as the victims were recovering from the effects of the first.

"Alpha Team, muffs on." At this command, everyone on the team put on a pair of earmuffs with the exception of Hikaru who had already been wearing them in order to avoid making noise as she put them on near the terrorists. "Take it away, Stamper."

"Roger, Team Leader. Flash time minus 30 secondsÖ20 secondsÖ10 secondsÖflash time in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1." The cars containing the flash-bangs were parked some distance from the area of engagement, but at Stamper's command, they leaped forward at top speed. This was rather noisy and immediately attracted the attention of all the terrorists. That was the point, of course. After three seconds, the terrorists were all looking at the cars which came zooming towards them. And then they were all staring at the peculiar globe that was fired out of the top of one of the cars. And thus they stared directly at a flash of light so bright that it could cause retinal damage at extremely close range. The bomb also created a bang equivalent in strength to some of the louder sections of a rock concert. Everyone was completely disoriented.

Except Hikaru, of course. Her ears had been protected by the earmuffs, and she had been facing away at the instant of the explosion. She whipped herself around the column now and quickly acquired her target. He fell with a bullet in the back of his head. Without wasting time to make sure he was down, Hikaru acquired her next target and pulled the trigger. Right then, a beep in her ear told her that the second flash-bang was about to explode. She quickly closed her eyes until she felt the slight vibration that told her that it had exploded by now. This explosion would buy her less time because the lone surviving terrorist was not looking directly at it. She found him and fired. He only survived by a pure stroke of luck. In the confusion created by the flash-bangs, a civilian had bumped into him and knocked him slightly to the side. Hikaru's bullet hit him in the elbow. It was good enough to make him drop his rifle. Realizing that he was at a disadvantage, he immediately began to run. Hikaru swore and gave chase, ripping off her earmuffs as she ran.

"Raven here. My target is down."

"Hokkaido. Same here."

"Central, Yuurei has taken down two bogeys and disarmed another. We are evacuating the hostages."

"Copy that, Team Leader. We've notified the police outside to stand by."

Out of the corner of her eye, Hikaru saw her four team members emerging from their hiding places to run towards the hostages. She concentrated on the last remaining target to be taken out who was now hiding behind some ovens. These terrorists had been smart enough to bring sidearms. The last terrorist pulled out some sort of handgun and was now firing at her. He didn't hit her because he had simply put his hand around the corner to fire at her. He was firing blind. Even if he had hit her, Hikaru's body armor was sufficient to stop these bullets. Taking aim, she fired. The fact that her X-33 made absolutely no noise while as it knocked the gun out of his hand would have struck some as eerie. Hikaru quickly ran forward. She could see the terrorist in the back of the store searching for some sort of weapon. Putting a bullet into his knee, Hikaru stepped closer. "That's enough," she said. "You're under arrest."

"The hell I am," he snarled at her. "You'll have to kill me."

"I'd rather not, but I won't hesitate if I have to. I'm not overcome with guilt after killing your other three friends."

The terrorist smiled. "What does it matter? There are more where I came from."

"So that's why you're doing this? It doesn't matter if I kill you because you'll just be cloned?"

The terrorist was grinning openly now. "You think so, do you? Despite what you might think, we're not that stupid. We have a better cause."

"Well, then, why don't you enlighten me."

"Why not? Couldn't hurt to have you a little more paranoid than you are right now. We're trying to draw one of your people out of hiding."

"You're trying to get one of our agents to blow his cover in order to protect civilians? Sorry, but we're trained not to do that."

"The particular agent we're looking for isn't undercover. And we know her. No matter what happens, if an innocent is in danger, she'll do everything possible to protect that innocent."

"So it's a she, huh? Since you're feeling so talkative, why don't you tell me the name of this female agent who is hiding from you."

The terrorist's eyes were glistening now. "Why not? You can help us find her." He stood up painfully and took a step closer to Hikaru. "Her name is Joanna Dark." With cat-like speed, he pulled out a combat knife and lunged at her. Hikaru was faster. She pulled the trigger and planted a bullet squarely in his forehead.

"Well," she said philosophically as her last target fell forward to the ground, "I was wondering why Joanna hadn't left a skeleton behind."


	7. Chapter 6: The Unrecognized One

**Chapter 6: The Unrecognized One**

"There's a profiler working on this, you know," Jasleen said. She frowned at the computer screen before her for a moment and then narrowed her search terms.

"It's not enough," Hikaru contended. "Joanna's the key to this case. I know it. She found out something about UM and she's still alive, hiding out somewhere. Whatever she knows, it's enough UM is willing to kill to make sure it doesn't go out."

"Well, here's her psych profile. Had it done a year before her disappearance, so it's about the best way to predict her movements we can come up with."

Hikaru stood up and looked over her roommate's head. "Very idealistic, it says. Even after all those years in the company. She wouldn't let an innocent person die for any reason. She really beat herself up when it happened once even though it wasn't her fault. Hmm…" She began to pace in her room, tapping her finger against her lips. "Let's go back to the explosion where she disappeared. UM captured her. That's how they had her suit. But she escaped somehow. She couldn't run back to CI or even contact anyone because it would compromise even more secrets. Her only chance was to hope we'd figure out that she was alive and go looking for her." Hikaru turned to stare at the computer screen again. "She knew her own psych profile. So her best chance was to do exactly what it predicted she would do: go save some innocent people. And the best way for her to know of some innocent people being harmed is if she had found out about it while UM had her prisoner. She's doing her very best to foil their plans but in such a way that she flies under everyone's radar. But how could she do that and how can we find her?"

"You could do a nationwide search of unexplained events involving UM starting since her death, I guess," said Jasleen. She glanced at her watch. "You'll have to do that yourself, for now. I have some more work to do on those brains."

"Have fun."

Jasleen rolled her eyes as she stood up and walked to the door. "It's some of the most tedious and frustrating stuff I've ever done."

"Well, you've been telling me that you hate having it so easy in school."

"I don't know what I was thinking. See you whenever." And with that, Jasleen left.

Hikaru was in no hurry to get started looking through case files. It was almost time for her to work out in the gym. She only sat down in the chair that Jasleen had just vacated and stared at the unblinking portrait photograph of Joanna that stared back.

_So you're sabotaging all of UM's secret plans, but you're doing it in such a way that nobody in the government knows it's going on and nobody can find you anyway. The perfect vendetta, in other words._

_But you've been inside their secret buildings. You know how dangerous they are and that we have to stop them. You know you can't do it alone. There's got to be something you can do to contact us without compromising secrets. You're probably trying it right now, and we just aren't paying attention._

_Where are you, Joanna?_

~-0-~

Logan was standing diffidently in a corner of Hikaru's holding Snuffels in his arms. Hikaru had told him that Snuffels liked being hugged. In front of him was a screen of the type one might use to cover oneself while changing clothes. On the other side of that screen was Hikaru. She was changing into a brand new ninja suit. It was always a brand new suit before every mission. CI regulations clearly stated that a ninja suit was not to be used again after a mission until it had been carefully examined and repaired. Hikaru probably hadn't damaged her suit in the last mission dispatching terrorists, but one never knew. What was unusual was the fact that she was changing putting this suit on so soon after her last mission. Just days after dispatching the terrorists in the mall, another mission had already popped up requiring her specialized skills. She had to be exhausted after one mission already. Physically, she had not exerted herself much, but the mission had to have been extremely stressful. One wrong move on her part would have led to dozens of deaths. Many people preferred to rest for a few days after a mission in order to recuperate. Hikaru hadn't complained upon hearing that she had another mission. On the contrary, she had seemed almost happy. That was wrong, and Logan knew it. A good agent didn't hate missions or even particularly try to avoid them. However, an agent who actually looked forward to them could become unstable after a few years. Logan himself had known one agent who had become a little too eager during missions and finally lost his grip. An agent had to remain cold as ice during and before a mission. Hikaru wasn't doing that. Then, Logan shrugged. Up till now, Hikaru had never failed a mission. She would eventually fail in one of them. Every agent did. At that point, Logan guessed that the way Hikaru viewed missions would change dramatically.

"So where's the mission?" Hikaru asked. That was another odd thing about her. She didn't mind having her briefing while changing. Therefore, she had taken Logan, who was to give her the briefing, into her room so that she could change and learn about her next mission at the same time. It was very practical, but it was odd nonetheless.

"On the local highway," he answered.

The sound of rustling clothes stopped for a moment. "_On_ the highway?"

"You're going to hijack a caravan of trucks, and the best time to do it is while they're on the road."

Hikaru didn't answer immediately. Logan guessed that she had a shirt over her head at the moment. Whether she was pulling it off or on he couldn't tell. Finally, she said, "Those mission designers don't ask much, do they?"

Logan ignored the remark. "The caravan consists of seven trucks. Just half an hour ago, one of the bugs I planted at UM picked up the voices of some people talking about moving some valuable cargo to another place. Right afterwards, satellites detected the caravan moving out of UM headquarters. They're headed towards the logical place. It's a facility that's extremely heavily guarded. We think bio-androids are manufactured there. Nobody's ever been able to get inside."

"So we want to make sure that caravan doesn't get there." It wasn't a question.

Logan nodded although he knew that Hikaru couldn't see him. "The conversation indicated that this valuable cargo would be carried in the second truck in line. The other trucks are transporting legitimate items: mufflers, engine parts, tires and so on."

"If this is on a highway, there are bound to be other cars around."

"Yes. You are to keep casualties to a minimum, of course. And, leave the other trucks untouched. If we start stealing car parts from UM, they can legitimately sue CI for disrupting their business. We don't have enough evidence yet to prove that they are behind the bio-androids, so such a lawsuit would be a disaster." Logan paused to remember the other things he had been instructed to tell her. "You will be approaching the caravan from behind. The local police arranged for an accident on that highway, so there will be a traffic jam. You will be transferred onto the last from a police car that will get through the traffic with its sirens." Logan paused again and determined that he had said everything he needed to say. "Any questions?"

"Yeah." Hikaru stepped out from behind the screen and held her arms out to the side. "Does this suit make me look fat?"

Logan examined her meticulously with his eyes. Then he walked around behind her and again looked her over. He privately suspected that Hikaru would look slim in a trench coat. He walked over to her right side and began looking her over from that angle. At that point, Hikaru evidently became tired of holding her arms out and dropped them. "No, I wouldn't say you look fat," Logan said without any hint of amusement.

Hikaru's face wasn't one that was particularly well suited to scowling, but she did her best to scowl anyway. "Do you always have to ruin my fun?" she complained. "Couldn't you act surprised or something?"

"I _am_ surprised," Logan said without a trace of surprise on his face. "I can't believe that I've forgotten to give this back to you." He placed Snuffels in her arms, and then opened her door to walk out. "You need to be ready to leave in five minutes." Then he left.

Hikaru stood for a moment holding Snuffels and then shook her head ruefully. "I'm going to need to work on him," she told Snuffels. Then, depositing him in an armchair, she walked out of the room.

~-0-~

The transfer of Hikaru onto the truck went smoothly enough. Approaching the driver's side of the truck, Hikaru had opened the passenger door of the police car she was in and leapt onto the side of the truck. She stuck to the side by virtue of the same equipment she used to climb walls. If she had tried the same stunt on any truck besides the last one, a driver behind would have noticed her immediately. The mission planners certainly avoided any risk they could think of.

It was just Hikaru's misfortune that the driver of the truck she was on happened to look into his rearview mirror. Apparently, the drivers in the caravan were in communication with each other because as one, they immediately headed for the shoulder of the road. Hikaru fervently prayed that they were not going to stop. She would have no problem dealing with the drivers, but it would be very messy.

Apparently, the executives at UM didn't want to have to explain what they were transporting to any police who showed up. Upon reaching the shoulder, the trucks immediately sped forward. Quite a few cars honked at them. Hikaru suspected that not a few drivers were staring at the black clad form stuck to the side of one of the trucks. It did help somewhat that she was on the truck's left side away from all the traffic. She began climbing to the top of the trailer she was clinging to. She had to move slowly. A truck moving at 100 kilometers per hour shakes quite a bit, and it didn't help that today was a particularly windy day.

In a matter of seconds, the caravan had moved past the accident on the road, and the trucks began to speed forward in earnest. Hikaru was concentrating so hard on reaching the top of her trailer that at first, she did not notice that the trucks kept shifting lanes left. She finally noticed that the truck was in the left lane, which was odd because trucks never drive in the left lane. Quickly looking forward, she saw that the trucks were going to pass under a bridge very soon. Then, the truck she was on shifted into the left shoulder. It was close enough that anything stuck to the left side of the truck would slam very hard into the pillar holding the bridge up. Hikaru didn't have enough time to reach the top. Berating herself for not noticing sooner, she attached her sticky grappling pad to the side of the trailer. Then, paying out as much cable as she dared, she let go of the side. She flew backwards, but she had judged the length of cable correctly. She went back exactly to the end of the trailer, and there, she reached out to grab one of the handles used to open the back of the trailer. Pulling herself onto the back, she waited until the truck passed under the bridge. So much for being shielded by the trailer's body, she thought wryly. Clinging to the back of the vehicle, she was completely exposed to all the rubbernecking passers by. Then, releasing the handle, she began pulling herself back to the climbing gear which was still stuck to the side. Reaching them, she quickly got onto the top.

From here, it was a simple matter of crawling forward on the trailer using her cups for a grip and then getting onto the next truck using her cable. Hikaru accomplished that much for the first two trucks. On the third, she ran into resistance. UM truly was prepared for almost anything. A flap on top of the trailer rose and a man's head poked out. Then his hand appeared. He was holding a gun. Taking aim at her, he fired. Quickly releasing one hand, Hikaru reached down to her waist. She was only carrying her Falcon 3. Taking a two-handed weapon on this mission would have been suicidal. As she swung around on one arm, she took aim and placed a bullet in the middle of the man's forehead. He fell back into the truck, and the flap fell down above him. Then Hikaru saw that the other trucks were similarly defended. She would be vulnerable while transferring from one truck to the next. She had to kill those men first. Bringing her gun to her face, she used her chin to turn on the laser-sight. She set it to emit a straight beam of light instead of a simple dot. Taking careful aim, she managed to shoot the men defending the next two trucks. Holstering her gun, she began to crawl forward again.

She was clinging to the fifth truck now. She only had to move forward one more. Her arms were getting very tired now. Her aim would not be steady, she knew, so she crawled as far forward as she could on her truck. Drawing the Falcon 3, she took aim and fired. She missed. She fired again, and missed again. Her aim was growing wildly erratic. She knew that it was no use trying to aim any longer. Her arms were too tired. Pointing in the general direction of her target, she fired until her magazine was empty. The man was still there. Hikaru sighed and put her gun away. With one hand to keep her attached to the trailer, it was impossible for her to reload. It seemed very likely that she would fail. At the very least, she would have to call for help in the form of a helicopter. Then she remembered her gas grenades. It was standard for agents to carry a pair of those on every mission. Hikaru had thought that they would be useless on this mission, but she had decided to take them along anyway. She was glad of that. Pulling a grenade from her belt, she pulled out the pin with her teeth and then lobbed it as accurately as she could behind the man's head. The grenade contained an instant-acting nerve gas. It had no long-term effects, but anybody who breathed in the gas would fall unconscious within seconds. The gas was bright green, and as the grenade exploded, a cloud of that green gas drifted backwards over the man's head. Hikaru held her breath as she flew through the gas cloud. It was going to confuse some of the drivers on the road behind, but that couldn't be helped. When she looked up again, the man was gone. She had a few minutes to get to him before he woke up. She did get to him before he woke up. Lifting up the flap on the trailer, she saw the crew-cut head of the man who had given her so much trouble. She was absolutely certain about what she had to do next. Drawing one of her sai, she reached down and stabbed him through the heart. Then she let the flap fall back down.

Hikaru's plan upon reaching the destination truck was simple. Holding on to the top of the cab, she reached down with one hand and opened the driver's door. Grabbing the surprised driver's shoulder, she wrenched and threw him out of his seat. It was a good thing that he hadn't chosen to wear a seatbelt. Nimbly swinging around, Hikaru landed in his seat and took control of the truck.

For a while, she simply followed the lead truck. Then, she saw that the caravan would reach a rest stop very soon. She waited until she was only about half a kilometer away from the exit. Then, turning the wheel hard and accelerating, she cut across the highway towards the exit. Horns blared and a number of cars nearly collided in order to avoid her. That couldn't be helped. As far as she could tell, no cars actually did collide. She reached the exit safely and pulled to a stop in front of a fast food restaurant. She had never heard of this particular chain, but she realized that she was hungry now. Getting out of the truck, she fell back against the door and stood there for a few minutes trying to work the ache out of her arms. Then she decided to look at the top secret item that she had just stolen.

The door on the back of the trailer was locked, of course. Hikaru had no trouble blasting off the locks with her now reloaded Falcon 3. She pulled open the door to reveal that the trailer was nearly empty. Lying in the middle was the body of the man she had stabbed. All the way in the back, Hikaru saw a blond woman. For a moment, she wondered what was so important about this woman. Then, when Hikaru hopped into the trailer and the other woman raised her face, she understood. Holding out her hand, Hikaru pulled the other woman to her feet. She had never met this woman before, but she had seen her picture. She looked directly into the blond woman's eyes and said, "It's a privilege to meet you, Velvet Dark."


	8. Chapter 7: The Night of Shattered Memory

**Chapter 7: The Night of Shattered Memories**

As was their custom, Hikaru and Jasleen ate dinner together. Tonight, they were eating out although they could both cook fairly well. In fact, Hikaru could have probably made a fair living as a Japanese chef because they were in high demand in the area. However, she had completed two missions in one day, and Jasleen had spent the entire day struggling with the immense complexity of bio-android brains. Neither of them was in the mood to do any more work, and so they were relaxing together in a diner.

Neither of them spoke very much. They were too distracted. Hikaru ordered a main course. Jasleen wisely did not order anything, and they went back to reflecting on the events of the day.

For Hikaru, the confusion had all begun after she had rescued Velvet Dark from the General Motors corporation. Hikaru remembered opening the trailer to the truck and finding a CI agent who had been missing for three years. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Velvet Dark," Hikaru had said.

And the other woman had stared back blankly. It had taken Hikaru a split second to realize that Velvet Dark didn't know her own name. It had taken a half a minute for Hikaru to find out that this woman actually believed herself to be a different person. From then, it had been easy to guess what had happened. United Motors manufactured bio-android brains. UM also programmed them. And UM could reprogram them. Thus, CI had been thwarted again in its ongoing search for the whereabouts of Joanna Dark. Her own sister would not be able to help.

There was no question that the woman that Hikaru had rescued was indeed Velvet Dark. DNA tests had confirmed that. Hikaru had looked at her file searching for some way of perhaps jogging her memory. Unlike her sister, Velvet Dark had not been a full-time agent. CI had only called on her service to provide back-up for her sister. They had made a powerhouse team, apparently. Some of CI's greatest successes had been achieved by the Dark sisters working together.

It was all gone now. Those who had met Velvet Dark could barely recognize her now. She certainly did not recognize them. She introduced herself as Anna Noctem now. Hikaru had smiled bitterly upon hearing that name. UM had given her a name derived from the Latin word for "night."

Debriefing for the mission had been very short, of course. It had been very quickly determined that there was nothing to be learned from Anna Noctem. Afterwards, she had very understandably wanted to know what was going on. Apparently, UM had intended to implant the memories of a full lifetime within her. They had been transporting her in a convoy of trucks for that very purpose. CI had intercepted her before that happened, and so Anna had been left only with the knowledge of her own name, her "past" and the fact that she had been interrogated very thoroughly by UM. After much deliberation, Daniel Carrington had decided that she had the right to know what she was.

It had taken some convincing, of course. After all, the only known way of distinguishing a bio-android from a human was to hit a bone somewhere very hard with a heavy object to see if it broke. Carrington had refused to employ that method. Eventually, Anna had been convinced after seeing Velvet Dark's file and an MRI had revealed that her brain was made of non-organic materials. She had taken the news very well, all things considered. Hikaru had taken her back to see Velvet Dark's old apartment at CI. Together, they had sat together talking.

"Do you remember your parents?" Anna had asked.

Hikaru had been sipping her tea at the moment. After consciously swallowing, she had answered, "Yes."

That had evoked a sigh. "I remember my parents." Bitterness in her voice. Hikaru had leaned forward. "But they're so full of holes. Up until now, I just accepted that they existed. I never stopped to wonder why I don't know where they live or about the fact that I don't know the color of my mother's eyes. Just little things like that. I should know, but I don't." Silence, and a sip of the tea. "Tell me about your parents."

Another sip of the tea, and then a moment of silence. "My parents, huh? Wel…I'm sorry, I've talked about them a lot. But I never know where to start with them. They were both short. They were immigrants from Japan, you see, and the Japanese are a bit shorter than westerners. My mother was very warm, I remember that. My father often smelled of oil. He was an engineer, a mechanic. My mother used to sit me on her lap. She shook a lot when she laughed. It was very comfortable on her lap." More silence.

"Those are all childhood memories."

"There aren't any others."

"I'm sorry." Silence again and a look around the room. "Is this really what the room looked like when she lived here?"

A nod. "Dad preserved the room when Joanna disappeared. He did it in her honor, I suppose. He can be strange sometimes. Anyway, she and Joanna put all these decorations up. I wonder where they found this furniture though. It's really very comfortable."

"So this…woman who I used to be…she lived for many years. And she actually put this room together for herself." Wonder in her voice. "I remember decorating my office and buying the furnishings for my room. But I never did that. It was all put into my head. She's lived so much more than me."

"Don't cheapen yourself like that. You're a living, full human being. So was Velvet Dark, but she's gone now. You've got a life to live."

"But I haven't lived. I don't even live now. I'm just a program built into some kind of device in my head. I'm nothing more than a set of instructions."

"Anna, you have real emotion. You can feel it as much as anyone. You can be irrational and have instincts as powerful as the rest of humanity."

"It's not a soul, though. It's all just built into me. I'm a bunch of hardware and software."

"When you get right down to it, am I anything more?"

"Hikaru, are you listening to me?"

Hikaru blinked and shook her head. "Sorry, I was thinking about Anna."

"She is an interesting case, isn't she?" Jasleen had begun helping herself to Hikaru's meal. They had established this habit a long time ago after their first experience eating at a diner. Hikaru had ordered a hamburger, not knowing just how large an American hamburger could be along with a plateful of french fries. Hikaru had barely managed to eat half of the hamburger and had not touched the fries. From that point on, she always brought Jasleen along for a helping hand.

"Do you think it's possible to restore her memory?"

Jasleen nodded without hesitation. "You can't erase something without leaving marks behind. If UM just wiped her once, I should be able to restore her by at least 90%. I'm even starting to understand how these brains work." Jasleen paused. "But the question would be whether we want to do that."

"What do you mean?"

"According to her, she's existed as Anna for three years now. She's lived those three years and gained her own personality and memories in that time. Remember, your dad decided that we would treat bio-androids as equal to a human since they are considered alive by most definitions."

"But the personality implanted in her is an artificial one."

"So was her first personality. Can we really consider a personality to be so little that we can just erase it with a press of the button?"

Hikaru rubbed her temple. "God, that's all I needed: an ethical dilemma."

"Well, when we get back, we can ask Anna what she thinks about it."

Hikaru nodded slowly. Then she remembered that her food was getting cold. Picking up her fork, she began to eat. Strangely enough, she had quite an appetite.

~-0-~

It was a beautiful night, cool and refreshing. The city was buzzing with life, but not so much that it became a nuisance. Hikaru was taking her time, enjoying the sight of lit buildings and people passing by in the street.

Even while taking a leisurely walk, however, her instincts were engaged. That was how she was able to react instantly when she heard a cry raised by a woman on the street. Quickly looking in that direction, Hikaru saw a man running towards her clutching a purse. It was fairly clear what he was doing. Taking a moment to brace herself, Hikaru calmly jumped into the air and shot her foot out to smash into his face.

He recovered amazingly quickly. Regaining his balance, he shoved Hikaru while she was still landing from her jump. Hikaru fell to the floor and groaned, but not out of pain. His quick recovery had told her that he was yet another bio-android. This was quickly starting to irritate her. Getting to her feet, she yelled to Jasleen, "Stay here and call the police." Jasleen nodded, and then Hikaru was off in pursuit.

The other man had no chance of outrunning her. If nothing else, he could not swing his arms because he was using both of them to hold on to the stolen purse. He turned into an alley in an attempt to shake her, but Hikaru wasn't afraid of alleys. Just in case he intended to ambush her, she drew her Falcon 3 before entering.

He did indeed try to ambush her. Hikaru had a split-second after hearing him cock his handgun to jump out of the way. Bringing up her own gun, she swung her sights around trying to find him in the dark. Then, she realized that she had the advantage. Mentally preparing herself, she ran deeper into the alley. She made absolutely no noise as she moved along. For the hundredth time, she thanked her parents for giving her ninja training. Stopping for a moment, she saw his leg. She quickly swung about and fired. He cried out in pain and ran off. He was being very noisy about it, but Hikaru couldn't track him with her ears alone. Then his footsteps stopped. Hikaru had a general idea of where he was, but she could not fire for fear of revealing her location to him. And so they stood there for a moment, engaged in a game of chicken in the dark.

It was Hikaru who first noticed that there was a faint source of light at the end of the alley. Then she realized that to eyes adjusted to the dark, she presented a silhouette by standing in front of that light. Then she heard her opponent take a step, and she knew that she had to move. She dove to the ground just as his gun fired. She was just an instant too late. A bullet smashed into her knee. She had lost her advantage, but she didn't need it anymore. In firing on her, her opponent had revealed his position. Taking aim, she fired and felt a surge of satisfaction as he groaned and fell to the ground. Now, all she had to do was wait for the police to find her.

It took her a few minutes to realize that something very odd was going on. Considering the fact that her knee was smashed, it didn't hurt all that much. Dragging herself towards a spot where the moonlight would allow her to see, she sat up and grunted as pain shot up her knee. It was broken all right. It was just her luck to get her first injury in a fluke encounter on the street. She took a deep breath and forced herself to look at her knee.

The bullet was lodged in there. And the very end of it was sticking out from her kneecap. It was probably safe to extract it. Taking hold and gritting her teeth, Hikaru wrenched and cried out as the bullet came free. Then she saw that the bullet was flattened at the tip. For a moment, she stared unbelievingly at the metal piece in her hand. It seemed suddenly that the entire city seemed to go quiet as if it were holding its breath, waiting to see what she would do next. She was alone with the triphammer beating of her heart and the blood rushing through her veins and the flattened bullet in her hand. She couldn't quite breathe. She couldn't quite think.

And then finally, as if she bore the weight of a building on her shoulders, she stood up. And placed her full weight on a knee that should have been smashed into fragments. Thinking about the smell of her father's hands and the sound of her mother's voice, she began to walk away.


	9. Chapter 8: Onryou

**Chapter 8: Onryou**

She was walking in the back alleys of the city. She knew them all by heart. An agent occasionally needed to lose pursuers in the winding, twisting maze where few decent citizens dared to venture. Her hands were thrust into her pockets, and her eyes were lowered. When she passed an occasional light from a window, her shadow could be seen walking beside her. It seemed even smaller than she was. Every once in a while, the moon emerged from behind the clouds to shine down upon her and cast the entire city into a strange blue hue. She saw none of this and only continued to walk. Even in her current state of mind, her footsteps were absolutely silent. Thus, she attained the ultimate goal of a ninja: to be nothing more than a ghost in the night.

_I should have known. The facts were all there. An agent with body measurements matching Joanna's exactly. The only one to ever break Perfect Dark's record, and Perfect Dark had not been human. Her parents died nine years ago, exactly the same year that Perfect Dark disappeared. And they died in a fire so that there were no bodies left to recover. It all makes perfect sense._

She made a left turn and began to go deeper into the slums of the city. She could disappear very easily here, even if she had a tracking device in her head.

_What was it like for you to find out, Joanna? Did one of your bones fail to break when it should have? Or was it something else? How did it feel to know that your life was nothing? That your childhood had never happened? Did you start to go mad?_

_ Are you in there, Joanna? My body is yours, but is my mind? Are you inside me, hidden in some remote corner, waiting to return? Or were you erased before I was implanted into you? You must have had someone do it for you. Someone you trusted. It wasn't GM. They are still looking for you. They never caught you—you're too good for them. You did this to yourself. So did you commit suicide? Are you still there to help me?_

It was growing very dark now. A few young men were starting to follow her. As time passed and she did not look around, they grew bolder. Steadily, they grew in number. Finally, there were half a dozen of them behind her, and others were running to cut off her other escape routes. She ignored them completely.

She was finally forced to stop by a muscular boy standing directly in her path. The scars on his bare arms attested to a long experience dealing with people who resisted his attacks. She stared back at him, her black eyes unblinking, uncaring, unliving. He demanded that she hand her money over. His expression clearly indicated that he intended to do more than steal her money. She didn't seem to hear his words. She only stared back at him. He began to feel uncertain of himself. There was an undefinable eeriness in the way she stood perfectly still, her dead black eyes staring at him, seeing him and not seeing him at the same time. Those eyes belonged to a demon, a ghost—not this gentle looking creature who stood a head shorter than him. For a moment, he hesitated. Then, he regained his confidence, and in that act, he sealed his doom.

_So now what? Is there still anything left to live for? Is there anything left to die for?_

He shouted his demands this time, threatened her, pulled out a gun. She continued to stand where she was. Finally, he took two steps forward so that he towered over her. Standing this close, he was the first to see the metallic gleam of a weapon in her hand. By then, it was far too late.

There were four full seconds of stunned silence as the other gang members stared at the gleaming sai jutting out of their leader's chest. He made no sound as his knees gave out and he slowly sank to the ground. Then, as one, they lifted their weapons and began to fire. She was already gone. They heard absolutely nothing as two of their comrades fell to the ground, each with a red circular dot in his forehead. They stopped for a moment. She was hidden somewhere in the steadily growing darkness. Then, another fell. The only sound they heard was the sound of a bullet crunching through a skull. As one, they decided to split up to find her. One of them felt an arm wrap around his neck from behind. He didn't have enough time to think about what that meant before his head was sharply twisted around with a faint crack. Another one never even knew felt anything. He simply dropped as a sai was driven into the back of his head.

There was only one left now. He didn't know that until he returned to the center of the street and saw two more bodies lying on the ground. He was the only one in the gang to feel panic. Turning, he began to run away. He only began to run because he immediately saw her standing behind him. An inhuman cry of terror ripped from his throat, and purely out of reflex, he raised his gun and fired at her face.

Her head jerked back, and she nearly fell. Then she regained her balance and stood up straight again. The lone survivor stared in horror at the bullet that was clearly visible on he forehead. Reaching up, she pulled it out and dropped it to the floor. She wasn't even bleeding much. She smiled. In all his life, he never saw anything more frightening than the smile on that beautiful face with the dead eyes and the circle on the forehead. All the will drained out of him, and he dropped to his knees before her. He didn't feel himself die.

_So you created me. And now I know why. I know why I'm here. I'm here to avenge you. I'm here to destroy GM and to ensure that nobody else is forced to suffer the way you did. And if not, I am here to die trying._

_ So be it._

Breaking into the Carrington Institute headquarters unnoticed was a cakewalk for one of CI's own agents. The building had a number of underground passageways that were to be used in the case of an emergency. They were meant for evacuation purposes, but they served well enough as a method of entry so long as one avoided the security cameras. Avoiding those cameras would have been impossible for someone who did not know where they were. They were simply too well-placed. However, Hikaru knew exactly where they were and so avoided them without difficulty. In a few moments, she was back at CI headquarters.

She went first to the building's storage area. At this hour, the place would be deserted and locked. She entered the conventional way: she slid her security card through the slot and walked through the temporarily opened door. Once inside, she employed her security card again to open a safe. Inside was the X-33. CI only had two, and only two people had the clearance to gain access to them. Daniel Carrington was one of them. The other was CI's top agent, whoever that was. After gaining her weapon, she gathered up a ninja suit and a pack of ammunition. She collected three magazines of 9 mm rifle bullets, five magazines of the more standard .21 caliber bullets and two magazines of the .50 caliber bullets used for long range sniping.

Leaving the storage area, she next headed for the intelligence center. This area was also deserted, and she was also able to enter by means of her security card. Here, she collected a palm top computer and then downloaded the GM list off of the main computer. She pocketed the palm top as she left.

Exiting the building unnoticed was much harder than entering. This was because the security cameras pointed outwards, making it difficult to accurately predict their field of vision from inside. Therefore, Hikaru headed towards her apartment. She had something to collect there anyway. Unlike the other areas, this one was occupied by a person. Hikaru could hear Jasleen watching TV in another room. She had finally arrived home. Moving silently, Hikaru went to her own room and opened a drawer. It contained a short knife. Unsheathing it, she regarded at the razor sharp blade. She never knew when she would have to employ it for its intended purpose. Closing the drawer and making sure she left no trace of her presence, she walked back to the center room and headed for the window. Then, she stopped, momentarily confronted by the black eyes of Snuffels. For a moment, they stared at each other. Snuffels wore the same expression as always, but now there seemed to be a strange sympathy in that expression. At the same time, there was trust. He understood her completely, and he didn't reprove her. It was only natural. They had known each other for thirteen years. At least that was what she had been led to believe. She couldn't resist reaching out a hand to touch him. "And where did you come from?" she whispered. "What's your story?" She was silent for another moment. "You're the only one left to trust. I know you won't betray me."

She stepped away from him and opened the window. It was a windy night, and her hair blew out behind her in a black stream. Carefully, she stepped out and attached her climbing gear to the outside of the building. Then she closed the window, careful not to make any noise. As she was closing the window, an especially strong gust of wind blew in. Perched on the edge of a table, Snuffels teetered for a moment as he was struck by that wind. Perhaps because of chance, perhaps because of something else, he continued to lean precariously as Hikaru descended the side of the building. Then, as she fell out of sight, he tipped over another fraction of a centimeter and flopped over to land on the floor.

Jasleen couldn't concentrate on her TV show. In her head, she kept going over the events of that night. She remembered Hikaru's back as she chased the purse-snatcher. She remembered the police arriving and tracking Hikaru down into a dark alley. There had only been a few traces of blood on the floor. The police had found the body of the purse snatcher in that alley with a bullet in his stomach which was unprotected by bones. Of Hikaru, there had been no trace.

She gave up and switched off the TV. Walking back into the main room, she immediately saw Snuffels lying on the floor looking up at her. There was something wrong. He had been sitting on the table last time she saw him. The only possibility was the some sudden gust of wind had blown him over. And the only possible source of that wind…

Her heart thundering within her, Jasleen grabbed a gun and searched the apartment. Entering Hikaru's room, some instinct told her that the drawer had been opened recently. Opening it, she saw Hikaru's knife missing. She only stared at the empty drawer for another second before bolting out of the apartment in search of Daniel Carrington.

It was all over CNN the next day. Robert Ecker, a prominent businessman, had been murdered that night in his house. Authorities had been perplexed until they found photographs, obviously planted, showing pictures of Ecker dealing with known criminals. One of those criminals had been a hit man. He had been the victim of gang war, authorities concluded.

Daniel Carrington had concluded differently. First of all, the bullet lodged in Ecker's heart still had its outer casing. Any conventional weapon forces the bullet out of its outer casing and ejects the leftover shell before chambering another bullet. There was only one weapon that fired the entire bullet and did not eject any shells. One of those weapons had been found to be missing from CI's storage area. Daniel Carrington hadn't taken it out, so everybody knew who had.

Carrington stood next to Ecker's body lying on the autopsy table. Dr. O'Connor had quickly confirmed that Ecker had been a bio-android. Now, Carrington was left alone to gaze upon the handiwork of his adopted daughter. The room was silent for several minutes.

That was how Jasleen found him when she entered the room. Quickly, she told him that she had learned more about the structure of bio-android brains. By hooking up wires to certain parts of the brain, she could theoretically create a picture of the memories contained within that brain. The procedure involved destroying the brain, but Ecker didn't need it anymore. Carrington gave his approval.

If anything, watching the video was more painful than seeing Ecker's dead body. The image was far from perfect, but it didn't need to be. Everyone clearly saw Ecker's bodyguards slaughtered single-handedly by Hikaru with her bare hands. In her movements had been an absolute ruthlessness that nobody would have guessed to be within her a few days ago.

Then her image on the screen approached them. There was no sound—Jasleen hadn't been able to reproduce memories of sound—but there was no need. Everybody clearly saw in her expression that Ecker had said something to her. Everybody watched as she slowly smiled while her eyes remained empty. Then she began to speak.

"Dear God, Hikaru," Carrington whispered. "What's happened to you?" Everybody assumed that he was reacting to the sight of that dead face, but they were not quite correct. Alone of all the people who watched the video, Carrington was the only person capable of hearing her words. As she stepped closer to Ecker, he clearly read the words formed by her lips.

"Who am I? Interesting that you should ask." She smiled a smile that was strangely empty and yet sad at the same time. "I am the shadow of darkness. I am Onryou, the vengeful spirit." Then she leaned closer to give him the full effect of her black eyes.

"I am an experiment gone horribly wrong."


End file.
